The Lithia Springs Hotel, designed by Portland architects Tourtellotte and Hummel, was intended to be a modern luxury hotel of imposing dimensions and style which would provide first class accommodations for the many visitors and tourists that Ashland business people expected to be drawn to the health resort and vacation center. It was the tallest building between Portland and San Francisco.

The expected tourist boom did not materialize and the Great Depression began in 1929. The hotel endured many lean years until it was renovated and upgraded as the Ashland Springs Hotel in the early 21st century largely due to the increasing popularity of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The Lithia Springs Hotel was built near the end of the early 20th century period of eclecticism. Reinforced concrete was used to create an up-to-date high rise building, but it was decorated with motifs borrowed from Romanesque, English Tudor Gothic, Classical Revival and other revival styles. This somewhat anomalous treatment nevertheless created the desired effect of modernity and sumptuousness.

Adapted from the NRHP nomination submitted in 1978.