The Read House Hotel, Chattanooga, TN
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The Read House Hotel is a historic hotel in
Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...
, founded in 1872. The 141-room main building dates to 1926, and is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
for Hamilton County. The 100-room rear wing was added in 1962, originally as a motel.


History


Origins

The first hotel on the site, the Crutchfield House, opened in 1847. It was constructed by future Chattanooga Mayor Thomas Crutchfield Sr., directly across from the Union Depot. The railways were the main source of business and imports to the town and this constant flow of business allowed the Crutchfield House to prosper. Thomas Crutchfield, Sr. died in 1850, and his son, Thomas Crutchfield, Jr., also a future mayor of Chattanooga, took over the hotel.Oliver Perry Temple,
Mary Boyce Temple Mary Boyce Temple (July 6, 1856 – May 16, 1929) was an American philanthropist and socialite, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was the first president of the Ossoli Circle, the oldest ...
(ed.),
William Crutchfield
" ''Notable Men of Tennessee'' (Cosmopolitan Press, 1912), pp. 109-113.
Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the only President of the Confederate States of America, president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the Unite ...
stayed at the Crutchfield House on January 21, 1861, while traveling home to Mississippi after resigning from the United States Senate. Davis delivered a speech in favor of secession in the hotel's dining room, causing future congressman William Crutchfield (Thomas Crutchfield, Jr.'s brother) to deliver a fiery speech of his own, denouncing Davis as a "renegade and a traitor," and saying that Tennessee would not be "hood winked, bamboozled and dragged into your Southern, codfish, aristocratic, tory blooded, South Carolina mobocracy."William C. Davis,
Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour
' (LSU Press, 1996), p. 296.
A duel nearly resulted between the men and the argument at the hotel was widely reported as tensions grew on the eve of the Civil War. In 1862, the hotel served as the headquarters for the local Confederate garrison. That winter, Confederate General Samuel Jones, commander of the Department of East Tennessee, converted the hotel to a military hospital. Chattanooga was occupied by the Union on September 9, 1863, and the 92nd Illinois Infantry Regiment placed its regimental colors atop the hotel to signal their control of the town. The hotel later served as a hospital for Union soldiers wounded at the
Battle of Chickamauga The Battle of Chickamauga, fought on September 18–20, 1863, between the United States Army and Confederate States Army, Confederate forces in the American Civil War, marked the end of a U.S. Army offensive, the Chickamauga Campaign, in southe ...
. The Crutchfield House survived the war, but caught fire and burned down in 1867. After the fire, the Crutchfield family chose not to rebuild.


First Read House Hotel

Civil War surgeon John T. Read had previously owned a hotel with his wife Caroline in their hometown of McMinnville, Tennessee, which had similarly burned down. They moved to Chattanooga in 1871 and purchased a three-story office building that had been built on the site of the Crutchfield House. Read converted that structure to a 45-room hotel, the Read House Hotel, which opened on New Year's Day 1872. In 1879, he sold the hotel to his 19-year-old son, Samuel R. Read, who expanded the hotel to 202 rooms by 1902.


Modern Read House Hotel

In 1925, the majority of the original structure was torn down. It was replaced with the current 10-story Read House Hotel, opened on July 5, 1926. The new hotel was designed by the Chicago firm
Holabird & Roche The architect, architectural firm now known as Holabird & Root was founded in Chicago in 1880. Over the years, the firm has changed its name several times and adapted to the architectural style then current — from Chicago school (architectu ...
, in the Georgian style and constructed by the George A. Fuller Construction Company of Washington, D.C., at a cost of $2.7 million. The new wing had 280 rooms, while the remaining portion of the old structure had an additional 120 rooms, which were kept in operation until the new wing was completed, so the hotel did not need to fully close during construction. Samuel R. Read died in 1942, and in 1943 the hotel was sold to Albert Noe, Jr. He died four years later, and his son Albert Noe III assumed control of the hotel. In 1962, Noe built a six-story motel wing with an underground garage and an outdoor pool in the rear of the hotel, to appeal to travelers on the newly constructed
Interstate Highway System The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Hi ...
. It is today known as the "Manor" wing. Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company bought the hotel from Noe in 1968 and retained the National Hotel Company to manage it. In 1978, the hotel was sold to the owners of the nearby
Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel The Chattanooga Choo-Choo (formerly known as Terminal Station) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is a former railroad station once owned and operated by the Southern Railway. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the station operated as ...
and renamed the Choo-Choo Read House. A nightclub was added on the mezzanine, the Grand Central Station Disco, which remained in business until 1980. Soon after, the hotel became a
Best Western Best Western International, Inc. owns the Best Western Hotels & Resorts brand, which it licenses to over 4,700 hotels worldwide. The franchise, with its corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, includes more than 2,000 hotels in North America. ...
franchise and was renamed the Best Western Choo-Choo Read House. The hotel would go through seven different owners between 1980 and 2000, as its luster slowly dimmed.
Radisson Hotels Radisson Hotels is a multi-brand hotel chain with a worldwide presence. Its brands include several using the Radisson name, as well as other brands like Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts and Country Inn & Suites. In June 2022, Radisson Hotel Grou ...
assumed management in 1986 and the hotel became the Radisson Read House. After an $11 million renovation in 2004,
Sheraton Hotels Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is an American international hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, Sheraton operates 446 hotels with 155,617 rooms globally, including locations in North America, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Centr ...
assumed management and the hotel became the Sheraton Read House, reopening on November 18, 2004. The hotel dropped its affiliation with Sheraton in 2015 and became The Read House Historic Inn & Suites.Pare, Mike (10 October 2014)
Read House plans revamp, dropping Sheraton name
, ''
Chattanooga Times Free Press The ''Chattanooga Times Free Press'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is distributed in the metropolitan Chattanooga region of southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. It is one of Tennessee's majo ...
''
On August 30, 2016, the hotel was purchased by Avocet Hospitality Group of Charleston, SC. The hotel was renovated at a cost of $27 million, which included the movement of the main entrance from Broad Street to its original location on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, in front of the hotel, the addition of multiple dining outlets and the renovation of all guest rooms. The hotel reopened in 2018 as The Read House. In 2022, the hotel celebrated its 150th anniversary.


Famous visitors

In the heart of Chattanooga, the Read House has hosted many celebrities and politicians. Among them are presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, as well as Edwin Booth, Gene Autry, Elvis Presley, Oprah Winfrey, Gary Cooper, Winston Churchill, Bing Crosby, Walt Disney, Bob Hope, and Al Capone. Capone stayed in the Read House a short time during his federal trial in the early 20th century. Custom iron bars were added to the windows in the room Capone resided in (Room 311), and remain there to this day.


Room 311

Perhaps the thing the Read House is most known for is the haunting of room 311. Many believe the room harbors the spirit of a woman named Annalisa Netherly. There are many legends as to who this woman was and how she became the famous spirit to haunt the hotel, but it is most well known that Ms. Netherly was a prostitute in Chattanooga during 1920s and 1930's. She supposedly resided in room 311 for an extended time. While details are hazy, Ms. Netherly in fact died in that very room. Some legends have it that she was found soaking in the tub with her head almost completely decapitated- more than likely done by a jealous lover or husband. Other legends say that as she took a gentleman suitor to her room and he later directed his time and attention elsewhere to another woman. This supposedly left her broken hearted and suicidal, and it was then that Ms. Netherly took her own life. People who have stayed in room 311 say that Ms. Netherly hates men, especially those who smoke. Many guests that have stayed in the room, including Al Capone, have made it through the night without any paranormal activity, while others report it being heavy during their stay.


References


External links


The Read House Hotel official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Read House Hotel, Chattanooga, TN, The National Register of Historic Places in Chattanooga, Tennessee Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Beaux-Arts architecture in Tennessee