Tod E. McClaskey, 91, co-founder of the Red Lion hotel chain in the western United States, died in his sleep Saturday at his winter home in Rancho Mirage, said Alison Irwin, his secretary of 14 years.
McClaskey was born in Unionville, Mo., but grew up mostly in Arlington, Ore. At his first business, the old Frontier Room in Vancouver, Wash., he met Ed Pietz, and in 1959 they bought the 89-room Thunderbird Motor Inn in neighboring Portland, Ore., the first of what they initially called the Thunderbird-Red Lion Inns.
