The Melbourne Hotel opened on the evening of September 23, 1924, with several hundred guests attending. Elton Hall promoted the hotel and celebrated his 36th birthday that day. In the same year, the Melbourne Municipal Band was organized with D.P. Barber as director, the Melbourne State Bank opened in the hotel's banking rooms, prize fighter Jack Dempsy stopped at the Maddox Cafe in Melbourne, and hunters killed a bear near the city. Electric power, furnished by the Melbourne Utilities Co., was unpredictable, and if one of the two boilers was inoperative, the town as well as the new hotel could be without lights for several nights.