{{Short description|Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, US}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}} {{Infobox building |name = Maxwell House Hotel |image = File:Maxwell House Hotel 2.jpg |location = |coordinates = {{Coord|36|9|49.7|N|86|46|45.5|W|type:landmark_region:US-TN|display=inline,title}} |status = |construction_start_date = 1859 |completion_date = 1869 |demolished_date = 1961 |building_type = |architectural_style = |roof = |floor_count = |elevator_count = |cost = |floor_area = |architect = Isaiah Rogers |structural_engineer = |main_contractor = |developer = |owner = |operator = |references = }} The '''Maxwell House Hotel''' was a major hotel in downtown Nashville. Because of its stature, seven US presidents and other prominent guests stayed there over the years. It was built by Colonel John Overton Jr. and named for his wife, Harriet (Maxwell) Overton. The architect was Isaiah Rogers.<ref name=TNencyclopedia>Ophelia Paine, [http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=849 "Maxwell House Hotel,"] ''The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', online edition 2002, accessed November 12, 2011.</ref>
Former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was inducted into the Ku Klux Klan in this hotel in 1866. The first national meeting of the KKK took place at the hotel in April 1867. It later became the namesake of Maxwell House coffee. It was demolished in 1961.
==History== thumb|left|The hotel was named in honor of Harriet Maxwell Overton As Nashville developed, local businessmen believed it was time for a major hotel. Colonel John Overton Jr. decided to build one and named it for his wife, Harriet (Maxwell) Overton. He hired architect Isaiah Rogers to design the structure.<ref name=TNencyclopedia/> Construction began in 1859 using mostly enslaved labor.<ref name=marker>Kathy Walker, [http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=24145 "Maxwell House Hotel"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020225421/http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=24145 |date=October 20, 2011 }}, Historical Marker Database, November 6, 2009, accessed January 14, 2010.</ref> The outbreak of the American Civil War caused a suspension of construction on the hotel.
Nashville fell to the Union Army in 1862 and was occupied afterward until the end of the war. The army took over the unfinished hotel, using it as a barracks, prison, and hospital.<ref name=TNencyclopedia/><ref name=marker/> In September 1863, several Confederate prisoners were killed when a staircase collapsed.<ref name=Inside>Jackie Sheckler Finch, ''The Insiders' Guide to Nashville'', 7th ed. 2009, [https://books.google.com/books?id=lsDi_5UrIkwC&dq=%22Maxwell+House+Hotel%22&pg=PA28 p. 28].</ref>
The hotel was said to be haunted by a Southern belle and two brothers, who had been assigned as guards during the war. One killed the other and the girl in a jealous rage and died when the staircase collapsed while he was moving the bodies.<ref>Ken Traylor and Delas M. House, Jr., ''Nashville Ghosts and Legends'', Charleston, South Carolina: Haunted America/The History Press, 2007, {{ISBN|9781596293243}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=PsZNX_HnGmcC&dq=%22Maxwell+House+Hotel%22&pg=PT44 pp. 45-46]{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}.</ref>
Some of the spaces in the hotel were used. In the fall of 1866, former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was inducted into the Ku Klux Klan, a newly formed secret vigilante group. Politician John W. Morton performed the honors in Room 10 of the Maxwell House Hotel. Forrest was made the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire.<ref name="roseinvisibleempire22">{{cite book|last1=Rose|first1=Laura Martin|title=The Ku Klux Klan or Invisible Empire|date=1914|publisher=L. Graham co.|location=New Orleans, Louisiana|page=22|url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924083530117#page/18/mode/2up/search/nashville|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Chapters of the new association sprang up across the South, and the first national meeting of the KKK took place at the hotel in April 1867.<ref>Mark V. Wetherington, [http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=756 "Ku Klux Klan,"] ''The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', updated January 1, 2010, accessed February 11, 2013.</ref><ref>[http://www2.mcla.edu/Student_Life/ALANA_Student_Services/historical_fact_sheet.pdf Historical Fact Sheet] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080725121508/http://www.mcla.edu/Student_Life/ALANA_Student_Services/historical_fact_sheet.pdf |date=2008-07-25 }}, Study Circles Resource Center, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (pdf).</ref>
What local citizens called "Overton's Folly"<ref name=Inside/> was finally completed and opened in fall 1869; total costs were $500,000.<ref name=TNencyclopedia/> The Maxwell House was Nashville's largest hotel, with five stories and 240 rooms. It advertised steam heat, gas lighting, and a bath on every floor. Rooms cost $4 a day, including meals.<ref name=TNencyclopedia/> Located on the northwest <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=24145|title=Maxwell House Hotel Historical Marker|publisher=|access-date=January 14, 2010|archive-date=October 20, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020225421/http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=24145|url-status=dead}}</ref> corner of Fourth Avenue North and Church Street, the hotel had its front entrance, flanked by eight Corinthian columns, on Fourth Avenue in the "Men's Quarter". A separate entrance for women was on Church Street. The main lobby featured mahogany cabinetry, brass fixtures, gilded mirrors, and chandeliers. It had ladies' and men's parlors, billiard rooms, barrooms, shaving "saloons", and a grand staircase to the large ball or dining room.<ref name=TNencyclopedia/> George R. Calhoun, the brother of silversmith William Henry Calhoun, managed a jewelry store in the hotel.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Caldwell|first1=Benjamin Hubbard|title=Tennessee Silversmiths|date=1988|publisher=Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts|location=Winston-Salem, N.C.|isbn=9780945578017|oclc=837245410|page=49}}</ref>
The hotel was at its height from the 1890s to the early 20th century. Its Christmas dinner featuring calf's head, black bear, and opossum, and other unusual delicacies became famous. Hotel guests included Jane Addams, Sarah Bernhardt, William Jennings Bryan, Enrico Caruso,<ref name=Inside/> "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Annie Oakley, William Sydney Porter (O. Henry),<ref>Traylor and House, p. 45.</ref> General Tom Thumb, Cornelius Vanderbilt, George Westinghouse,<ref name=TNencyclopedia/> and Presidents Andrew Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.<ref name=marker/>
==Coffee connection== A reported comment by President Theodore Roosevelt that a cup of coffee he drank was "good to the last drop" was used as the advertising slogan for Maxwell House coffee, which was served at and named after the hotel.<ref>''The Tennessee Encyclopedia'' implies he drank it at the hotel, but other versions of the story hold that it was at Andrew Jackson's home, The Hermitage: [http://www.tnhistoryforkids.org/stories/maxwell_house "'Good to the Last Drop' ... or was it? Teddy Roosevelt's 1907 visit to The Hermitage,"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071112000018/http://www.tnhistoryforkids.org/stories/maxwell_house |date=2007-11-12 }} Tennessee History for Kids, accessed January 1 4, 2010. Based on Bill Carey, ''Fortunes, Fiddles and Fried Chicken: A Nashville Business History'', 2000.</ref> General Foods, former owner of the Maxwell House brand, acknowledged that Roosevelt in fact had nothing to do with the slogan's origin. It was penned by the company's onetime president Clifford Spiller. The coffee brand is still in operation, and is now owned by Kraft Heinz in the North American market and JDE Peet's in the rest of the world.
==Destruction== After being used for some years as a residential hotel, the Maxwell House Hotel was destroyed by fire on Christmas Night 1961.<ref name=Inside/><ref>"Hotel in Nashville Destroyed by Fire," ''New York Times'', December 26, 1961, p. 31.</ref> The ServiceSource Tower was later built on this site at 201 4th Avenue North. The Millennium Maxwell House Hotel, opened in 1979, was named for the old Maxwell House.<ref name="Millennium Maxwell House Nashville">{{cite web |title=Millennium Maxwell House Nashville |url=https://www.cvent.com/venues/nashville/hotel/millennium-maxwell-house-nashville/venue-700b8f98-bb41-4b99-a402-eab34622b166 |access-date=February 14, 2023}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Maxwell House Hotel}} Category:Burned hotels in the United States Category:Hotels in Nashville, Tennessee Category:Hotel buildings completed in 1869 Category:Buildings and structures demolished in 1961 Category:Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee Category:Demolished buildings and structures in Tennessee Category:1869 establishments in Tennessee Category:1961 disestablishments in Tennessee Category:Defunct hotels in Tennessee