Albert Pick Hotels
Imagineered and hand drawn by Louis Grell, an estimated seventy individual Purple Cow murals were installed inside at least eleven popular downtown coffee and sandwich shops scattered throughout the midwest from Waco to Scranton. Albert Pick Jr., created such a buzz surrounding these unique restaurants by involving the general public, on a massive scale, with the final touches on some murals and a 1953 unique collaboration with singer and actress Doris Day. Each mural had poems or ‘jingles’ written on the bottom. Each city had one locally themed mural created by Grell that was missing the jungle. The murals were installed, the shop was then opened and a public competition commenced over several months. Pick offered $25 ($500 today) to the winning entrant who was selected amongst thousands of participants by a Chicago committee and painted under that mural. These events typically made the headlines in the local newspapers and “Meet me at the Purple Cow” became the slogan of the day. The cartoonish murals were often described as funny, whimsical, refreshing or grotesque. While touring, celebrities such as Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley frequently stay overnight at downtown Pick Hotels and likely dined at Purple Cow restaurants. One Purple Cow shop was a notorious 1950’s gangster hangout.
Over the years since Grell’s death in 1960, the Grell family was only aware of the four small watercolors with accompanying poems; POSITIVELY MERRY, RATHER SHY, TO HER HOME INVITES YOU and CHARMING DATE. It wasn’t until research began in 2012 that we discovered the Pick Topicks 1948 article with the one interview where Grell mentions his work for the Albert Pick Hotels that we learned there was more, much more to the Purple Cow story. This was the only time Grell ever publicly mentioned this large body of work totalling about seventy murals. None of the murals are signed by Grell.
April 2026 UPDATE – Interior photo of the Hotel Miami (Dayton, OH) found showing several Grell Purple Cow murals and poems
May 2025 UPDATE – Interior photo of Hotel Jermyn (Scranton, PA) discovered showing six Grell Purple Cow murals with poems
Summer 2024 UPDATE Pegasus Cow images of the signed (L. Grell 1944) watercolor authorized to be published on LouisGrell.com for the first time. Published with special permission from the owner of the watercolor
Summer 2022 UPDATE – visit to Flint, MI reveals several Purple Cow murals by Grell in a private collection formerly hanging on the walls of the Pick-Durant Hotel and a 1941 photo showing six of the eleven murals with poems and a partial seventh
November, 2020 UPDATE – the first known photograph of a Grell Purple Cow mural on the wall inside the Pick-Ohio (Youngstown) emerges
UPDATE – In 1953 Doris Day sang a song about A Purple Cow that was “inspired” by the Purple Cow restaurants in the Pick Hotel chain (The Flint Journal, August 6, 1953, page 25).”
The 5 Keys and singer songwriter Richard Hayes also released songs about a Purple Cow.
During a concert tour stop in Topeka on May 21, 1956, Elvis Presley visited the Purple Cow at the Hotel Kansan where he spent the night.
Beginning some time in the mid 1930’s, the Albert Pick Hotels Corporation (Pick Hotels) began introducing Purple Cow sandwich and coffee shops to their patrons usually on street level near the lobby entrance of its downtown large hotels. Several shops were initially opened before Grell began to paint his murals. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Albert Pick and Secretary / Executive Vice President Mr. J. Edgar Moss approached Grell, who had already been commissioned by Pick to paint countless public room murals throughout the large hotel chain, with a proposal to paint murals for his sandwich and coffee shops. The new murals would be based on Gelett Burgess’s May 1895 Purple Cow poem and original cow artwork by Aubrey Beardsley published in Burgess’s magazine The Lark. Grell was reluctant to accept this commission at first professing “[n]ever having made a cartoon in my life before, I hesitated, and told him that I did not think I could do it for that reason. After some persuasion, however, I decided to try my hand at this type of painting-and the result is the numerous Purple Cow paintings that have left my studio since then (Albert Pick Hotels, Pick Topicks, AND NOW WE WANT YOU TO MEET Mr. Louis Grell ARTIST-CREATOR OF OUR PUBLIC ROOM AND PURPLE COW MURALS, May 1948, vol. 6 No. 5, pp. 6-7).”
Notice the ‘buggy eyes’ and the ‘hanging tongue’ of the cows in many of Grell’s Purple Cow murals undoubtedly influenced by Gelett Burgess’s original poems’ included artwork published in The Lark in May 1895.
For many years, Grell researchers were puzzled as to why he added so many flowers, specifically daisies to almost every Purple Cow creation. And why the odd trees surrounding the cows, many with breakfast food hanging from them? The hanging tongues and buggy eyes were an obvious influence of the Burgess’s accompanying artwork; but why the daisies and odd trees?
The design of Grell’s Purple Cow murals were heavily influenced by Walt Disney’s production of his Academy Award winning short cartoon, Ferdinand the Bull released in November, 1938. Ferdinand was obsessed with sniffing daisies and other flowers as he sat or lounged under a ‘cork tree’ atop a small hill. One of Grell’s Purple Cow murals (Jermyn, Fountain Square & Miami) is titled FERDINAND, THE LUCKY BULL, who is shown sitting under a tree surrounded by flowers hugging his new bride. Grell created his Ferdinand in a similar manner as Disney’s with his dark hair parted down the middle and with a dark coat of fur. Daisies are prominent in almost every Purple Cow mural created by Grell as the cows perform human antics typically under trees surrounded with flowers. Notice that Grell often hung food items from the trees such as pancakes, link sausage or doughnuts as did Disney with corks. The similarities to Ferdinand the Bull are found throughout Grell’s Purple Cows in all locations. He often used trees to separate the murals and place the cows under trees with flowers and daisies nearby.
Disney’s Ferdinand the Bull released in November 1938 and won a 1939 Academy Award:
parted hair, happy face, surrounded by flowers
Grell’s FERDINAND the BULL (partial mural) and other examples which he began creating in late 1939:
The poem and trees surrounding this mural fragment (above left) were cut off when this mural was removed from the walls of the Hotel Jermyn Purple Cow shop during a 1970’s renovation. Notice Ferdinand’s parted hair in Grell’s creation, some mushrooms and one blue flower that weren’t cut out during removal. There is also a partial tree remaining and some odd bushes surrounding them. The two partial views of watercolors (above right) show the many daisies Grell added.
The poem or ‘jingle’ that accompanied Grell’s Ferdinand mural reads:
“FERDINAND, THE LUCKY BULL
HAS WED A SPLENDID SPOUSE
IF WE HAD A PURPLE COW BACK HOME
I NEVER WOULD KEEP HOUSE”
Below are additional examples of the influence that Disney’s Ferdinand had on Grell’s cow murals. Top is from the Pick-Ohio in Youngstown and below that from the Durant in Flint, MI. Albert Pick Jr. claimed he had special and exclusive permission to introduce the Purple Cow shops in his restaurants. Before the Ferdinand revelations, it was always presumed he meant from Burgess. Who knows!
By 1956, at least eleven of the Albert Pick Hotels had at least one coffee or sandwich shop boasting Purple Cow murals. Two hotels had both Purple Cow sandwich and coffee shops representing an estimated total production of seventy individual Purple Cow murals (six to eleven murals each). Some reports claim as many as fifteen Pick hotels had these popular murals in their restaurant shops.
Here is a list of the Albert Pick Hotels with known Purple Cow shops: Anderson, Anderson, IN; Chittenden, Columbus, OH; Durant, Flint, MI; Ft. Meigs, Toledo, OH; Fountain Square, Cincinnati, OH; Jermyn, Scranton, PA; Kansan, Topeka, KS; Mark Twain, St. Louis, MO; Miami, Dayton, OH; Ohio, Youngstown, OH; Raleigh, Waco, TX; Roosevelt, Pittsburg, PA.
Other known Albert Pick Hotels: Anderson Tower, Anderson, IN; Ambassador, Chicago, IL; Antlers, Indianapolis, IN, Bankhead, Birmingham, AL; Barlum, Detroit: Beldon, Canton, OH; Belmont Plaza, NYC: Berkshire, Chicago, ILL; Besse, Pittsburg, KS; Bothwell, Sedalia, MO; Capitol, Topeka, KS; Carter, Cleveland, OH; Congress, Chicago, IL; Eldorado Towers, NYC: Elms, Chicago, ILL; Ft. Hayes, Columbus, OH; Ft. Shelby, Detroit, MI; Georgian, Evanston, IL; Grasmere, Chicago, ILL; Great Northern, Chicago, IL; Heidelberg, Baton Rouge, LA; Hotella, Miami Beach, FL; Istrouma, Baton Rouge, LA: Jefferson, St. Louis, MO; King, Baton Rouge, LA; Lee House, Washington, DC; Melbourne, St. Louis, MO; Missouri, Jefferson City, MO; New Southern, Jackson, TN; Nicollet, Minneapolis, MN; Oliver, South Bend, IN; Osage, Arkansas City, KS; Owensboro, Owensboro, KY; Phillips, Kansas City, MO; Savoy, Kansas City, MO; Terre Haute, Terre Haute, IN; Tiger, Columbia, MO; Tioga, Chanute, KS; Tuller, Detroit, MI; Ventura, Ashland, KY; Weston, Chicago, IL and several luxury motels.
Grell certainly was commissioned to create murals for many of the above locations during the 1940’s and 1950’s throughout his productive career. In some locations Grell painted murals for the lobby, a lounge or meeting room and the Purple Cow shops all under one roof. Exactly how many may never be known.
In 1940, the Dayton Daily News reported that a John Grell with the Chicago Art Institute hand painted murals for the Pick-Miami hotel’s Purple Cow sandwich shop which was “[t]he sixth restaurant of its kind in Ohio (June 4, p. 4).” We are uncertain how many of the other five Purple Cow shops in Ohio had murals hanging on the walls by 1940 besides the Pick-Miami in Dayton. We do know that all Purple Cow shops had murals. The fact that the newspaper had his first name incorrect is not surprising, since likely none of the murals were signed and there is no mention by Grell of many of his commissions because he was private about these things. Furthermore, Grell rarely visited the buildings where his murals ended up because he hand painted them in his studio in Chicago. Once completed and dried they were rolled up and shipped to the hotel for installation by local artisans. The only reason he agreed to conduct the one phone interview for the Topicks magazine in 1948 was to fulfill a promise he made to his sister Helen.
Pick Topicks May 1948 page 7
According to the above article published in the Albert Pick Hotels Corporation monthly magazine Pick Topicks, Grell’s fist Purple Cows were installed at the Pick-Ohio around 1939-1940 which included TEND A FURNACE (see below). Later reports claim that all Pick Hotels with Purple Cow shops included Purple Cow murals and one was always created with a local theme and initially installed with no poem so the competition could commence.
The four Purple Cow watercolor studies from c1940 shown above were utilized in many of the shops and the above advertisement thanking ‘Daytonians’ for supporting the Pick-Miami Hotel’s new Purple Cow restaurant. One locally themed mural specifically created by Grell for each hotel was installed and missing a jingle. The hotel announced a competition soliciting patrons to submit their own poem idea as part of a contest held with as many as 4,000 entrants competing to have their ‘jingle’ selected and later painted onto Grell’s mural. Menus were designed and specialty drinks created for the one-of-a-kind popular restaurants. Grell would routinely recreate a Purple Cow with the same poem and place the cow into a new scene with different surroundings such as trees and bushes for a different Pick hotel location. However, no two Purple Cow murals were exactly alike. We have estimated that as many as seventy Purple Cow murals were imagineered by Grell.
ABOVE – Entry card for this mural of a Purple Cow, Hotel Chittenden, Columbus, OH sitting on the State Capital dome. The unfinished part was the missing poem. It is entirely possible that the local artisans hired to glue Grell’s murals onto the walls and paint the winning jingle onto the locally themed mural would also do touch up work on the murals and the seams connecting them or corner touch up work. Inside Grell’s studio in Chicago were two large vertical rollers that were used to paint very long murals. Once a section dried, Grell would move onto the next section by rolling the canvas using the standing rollers. His fist large project back in the U.S. after his Hamburg days was in Utah, in the late summer of 1907, was reportedly 140 feet long.
BELOW – Hotel Raleigh, Waco, TX locally themed mural and contest winner:
Here is the winning jingle for the above contest:
“Why all this love for the Purple Cow?
The bewildered cowboy cried
She gives to us the best of food
The Texans all replied”
(above – Waco Tribune-Herald January 25, 1942 page 7)
(Above) Hotel Anderson, (Purple Cow Gives Prize For Jingle, Anderson Daily Bulletin, April 13, 1943, page 7). Hotel Anderson, Anderson, IN. Article confirms that one mural on the walls of each Purple Cow did not have a jingle written on it yet and that all of the Purple Cow shops in the Pick Hotels chain had cow murals.
Hand written on the back page of a Hotel Miami (Dayton, OH) Purple Cow menu reveals several previously unknown jingles.
Likely for the Hotel Chittenden, Columbus, OH as noted on the entry card above.
“THIS PURPLE COW ATOP THE DOME
PREFERS TO SIT INSTEAD OF ROAM
TO WATCH THE PEOPLE ON THE STREET
COME IN THIS COZY ROOM TO EAT”
And this one for at least three known locations (Jermyn, Fountain Square & Miami):
“FERDINAND, THE LUCKY BULL
HAS WED A SPLENDID SPOUSE
IF WE HAD A PURPLE COW BACK HOME
I NEVER WOULD KEEP HOUSE”
ABOVE – Confirms Grell painted the Purple Cow murals and the six foot by thirty-six foot lobby mural mounted above the registration desk (Murals by Grill[sic], Waco Tribune-Herald, December 14, 1941 page 8). The lobby mural was saved forty-five years later, placed in a vault, conserved and exhibited at a local museum where it remains.
November, 2020 UPDATE – A surprising email in November 2020 from Paul Langland, son of American poet Joseph Langland (1914-2007) lead to the first photograph of a Grell Purple Cow mural on the wall in an active Purple Cow restaurant that we were aware of at the time. It was installed at the Pick-Ohio in Youngstown. Paul also mentioned his father’s archives are held at Luther College (IA) and at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) which further lead to a letter by Langland describing how his poem was selected to be painted underneath one of the cows. According to Langland, he first encountered the mural in 1941 during lunch, submitted his winning entry and later returned for this photo in 1946 after the war. Langland was paid $25 for the use of his original poem which reads:
“I THOUGHT A COW COULD NEVER TEND
A FURNACE – FACT, I KNEWED IT:
BUT WILL EARTH’S WONDERS NEVER END
SHE COULDN’T, BUT SHE ‘DOOD’ IT” poem by Joseph Langland 1941
TEND A FURNACE mural image courtesy of the Joseph Langland Papers, RG15 Manuscripts, Luther College Archives, Decorah, Iowa
But Grell didn’t just create, design and hand draw the estimated seventy murals for the Pick Hotels; his imagineered cow face was utilized on all the Pick Hotels restaurant ware. The menus, ceramics and glasses all had Grell cow designs printed on them
The two above comparisons were both hand drawn by Grell and only he could have made the cows look almost human-like with eyelashes, lipstick and smiling while performing routine human functions. Most of Grell’s cow murals, however, had buggy eyes and hanging tongues similar to the Gelett Burgess’s original poem artwork. For more comparisons, please visit the Hotel Durant page.
-SOURCES-
Original letter by Langland & note courtesy of Joseph Langland Papers (FS 181). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
Red Skelton and Eleanor Powell starred in a 1943 movie called I DOOD IT
Typically oil on canvas covering large portions of all four to eleven wall sections. TEND A FURNACE 1940
August 28, 1941 black & white photo of the six murals at the Pick-Durant courtesy of the Sloan Museum of Discovery, Flint, MI
Hotel Jermyn Purple Cow photo courtesy of The Lackawanna Historical Society.
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