 The Jerome remained open, the city's only hotel, often becoming by default a boardinghouse.In 1911 ownership passed to local businessman Mansor Elisha, a Syrian American drummer with a travelling band who had stopped in Aspen, taken a job as the Jerome's bartender, and later acquired the hotel from Wheeler, who had by this time long left the city and was unable to pay the taxes as he had gone bankrupt.In 1918, the Jerome's parlors served as morgues during the flu epidemic.