The Marshfield Hotel, designed by Houghtaling & Dougan of Portland, is significant to Coos Bay for its associations with the economic development of the city as well as its associations with the Great Depression and its effects on Coos Bay.

The Marshfield Hotel was constructed between 1925 and 1948 and planned as one of Oregon's first-class tourist hotels. Throughout the state, major towns and cities constructed distinctive reinforced concrete hotels to hopefully house great numbers of tourists taking advantage of improved roadways. In almost all instances the onset of the Great Depression ruined the dreams of community leaders who had invested heavily in the modern, innovative structures.

The foundation was poured in September of 1925 and construction halted in 1928 when funding plans made it necessary to leave the structure approximately three-quarters finished. The hotel stood unoccupied and incomplete for twenty years and became known locally as "the white elephant." One long-time resident of Coos Bay recalled that pigeons, as they will, nested and filled the windowless stories through the years.

Following World War II, a Portland businessman purchased the old hotel for $500. It finally opened on May 1, 1948, with the new name, Tioga. Twenty-four elevators, which had been purchased twenty years earlier and stored on the Coos Bay docks, were installed and used for the first time. During the next several years, the hotel functioned successfully. Major local events were held in the large banquet and hall facilities. A lounge opened in one portion of the mezzanine floor. A restaurant, hair salon, and other convenient enterprises, served guests and local citizens of Coos Bay.

Source: NRHP Nomonation Form dated 22 February 1984

With a height of ten stories, the Tioga Hotel is the tallest building on the Oregon coast.

It was rehabilitated in 1995 as low-cost housing for seniors.