“The Blue Hotel” is set in the fictional settlement town of Romper, Nebraska at the start of the 20th century. Though the American West had, at this point, been developing for several decades, settlement communities like Romper were still quite small and functioned somewhat autonomously from state or federal governments. This explains some of the trepidation the Swede experiences when agreeing to stay overnight in a town that exists outside of the law.
As a state that existed on the eastern edge of the Old West, Nebraska was less of a destination location for many people seeking their fortunes out west and more of a place to stop for the night during their travels. This explains Crane’s choice to set the story in a hotel catering to such travelers in a community with a train station. Crane explains the role the hotel plays in the community in the following way:
But to the citizens of this prairie town and to the people who would naturally stop there, Pat Scully had performed a feat. With this opulence and splendor, these creeds, classes, egotisms, that streamed through Romper on the rails day after day, they had no color in common.
By putting a bright blue hotel in the middle of this small “prairie town” that draws people from all over, Scully has “performed the feat” of connecting people of different “creeds, classes, [and] egotisms.” This description captures the very real role that settlement communities along the railroad tracks played in connecting people from across the United States.
