The Excelsior Hotel was built for William Gough in 1887 on the corner of Mosman and Church Streets. It was a substantial hotel with wide wrap-around verandahs on the two street sides. It contained fifteen bedrooms, a dining room, billiard room, parlours and the public bar. In 1914 the lease was taken over by Phil Tolano, who then purchased the building in 1922. The Tolano family ran the hotel for almost 40 years. In 1949 Les and Flo Fitzgerald took over and Flo was so well beloved by locals and visitors alike her name became synonymous with the Excelsior. A meeting room in the current Excelsior Library is named after her today.
After changing managers over the years, including the Dillons, the Lestones and Robert Causer, the hotel was going strong into the 1990s. Then one night in 1995 a fire broke out, supposedly in one of the upstairs bedrooms, and the whole building was gutted by a huge inferno. The damage was considered too great, so the building stood in ruins until it was purchased by the Charters Towers Regional Council in the early 2000s.
Considerable work was done to preserve the outer walls and reconstruct the original features of the hotel, while updating the internal area and converting it into a public library.
The Excelsior Library opened in 2003, and while the exterior still resembles an historic pub, the interior is a light, modern library with meeting rooms availabe for hire, and the Excelsior Band room upstairs facing Gill Street. A burnt door frame was preserved in an upstairs wall to show the history of the building, and the batwing doors that had been installed in the pub were also restored and placed back in what is now the children's play area.