Built in 1926 and located on West Madison Street, the Allen Hotel was once Louisville’s largest hotel for Black guests during segregation. Featured in the Negro Motorist Green Book, it offered safe lodging when few places would. Notable figures, such as boxer Joe Louis, stayed in the fifty-room building.
The building is still in use today as part of an apartment complex.
Built in 1904 for Dr. George Frederick Shrady (the former physician for General Ulysses S. Grant) and his wife Hester, this 20-room Italian Renaissance-style cottage was later purchased in 1925 by Walter B. James, the President of the Jekyll Island Club, who named it “Cherokee.” The house is also known as the Shrady-James House. Renovated in 2001, it now serves as a hotel.
In Telfair County, on the edge of town, is the Hotel Willard. The first time I drove by this building, it was surrounded by trucks, and there was no way to get a good photo. This trip was successful.
Rural Telfair County was hit incredibly hard by Hurricane Helene, so my friends and I weren’t sure what might still be standing or overly damaged. Thankfully, this 1893 hotel is still in good shape and is being restored. I don’t know if it will stay as a hotel or not. It’s worth a stop to see the brickwork and windows.
Designed by architects Edward Daugherty and R. M.Walker, The Imperial Hotel was built in 1910. It cost $300,000 to build. There were 119 rooms and 59 individual baths.
The hotel was used until 1980 and then abandoned. It stayed vacant until the Olympics when the city turned it into low-income housing. In 2014, the hotel went under restoration. It reopened as housing for formerly homeless people and supportive housing for those with special needs.
Higdon Hotel was built in 1878 by Harriet Dodson. By 1883, the place was purchased by the Higdon family. The Higdons expanded it to host the railroad bosses who were overseeing the building of the railroad through Reliance.
Once the railroad was done, it became a resort hotel for people vacationing in the area. When the railroad no longer was the main method of transportation, the hotel went out of business.
In the 1970s, the hotel was purchased by seven friends who worked to stabilize the building with the hopes of reopening it again. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to complete the work.
Reference: WBIR in Knoxville
If you are from Spartanburg County, you might have heard about the healing waters of Glenn Springs that attracted thousands of people a year. The Glenn Springs Hotel was built in 1831 to cater to these visitors. It was destroyed by fire in 1941.
A train would bring vacationers to the Glenn Springs Station. A caravan would bring visitors and their luggage to the hotel. It was a vacation place for the elite and well-connected. Advertisements were placed around the country to attract visitors.
Photo information:
1. Public domain image from the South Carolina Digital Library’s postcard collection
2. Landrum, J. B. O. (1900). History of Spartanburg County: embracing an account of many important events, and biographical sketches of statesmen, divines and other public men … Atlanta, Ga.: The Franklin prtg. and pub. co..
3. info coming
4. Hayward, A. C.(1961, May 28). Glenn Springs: S. C.’s legendary fountain of youth. The State. p.C1.
5. 1911, June 18 issue of The State
