Somewhere around 1831, James Sykes built a 47 room hotel on the Carroll County side of the river. The railroad was beginning to come through. There was no station, so the hotel was convenient and profitable.

During a severe financial crisis in the late 1850s, Sykes suffered large losses and sold the hotel to a man named John Grimes. Unfortunately for Grimes, the hotel washed away in the great flood that swept through Sykesville in 1868.