Following a fire that destroyed the nearby Eureka Hotel in 1877, proprietor Frank McKeague leased the Leiding building as the location for the new Eureka Hotel. A notice for the hotel placed in the "Index Tribune" advertised that German was spoken and all employees were white (not Chinese). For fire safety reasons, a second stairway was added to the building, enclosed within an 11-foot extension to the building’s west end. A new front façade and balcony were also constructed. Between 1880 and 1886 Leiding leased the building to other tenants including John and Maggie Phelan who ran it as a hotel and boarding house for laborers at Solomon Schocken’s nearby quarries. Historical accounts indicate that, at least for a time, the Phelans ran it as a temperance hotel, advertising “no alcoholic beverages on the premises.”