Sebastian County Biography of Henry Grady Manning "Centennial History of Arkansas," 1922 Henry Grady Manning is displaying marked efficiency as the manager of the Goldman Hotel of Fort Smith, although one of the youngest hotel managers in the United States in charge of a hotel of this size and character. Back of his present work, however, there has been long practical experience in hotel service from the position of check boy to that of control of all the business interests of the hostelry. Throughout the intervening period Mr. Manning, has made a close study of the desires, wishes and demands of the public as to hotel service. Mr. Manning is a native son of Arkansas, his birth having occurred in Scott county, his parents being Dr. Henry G. and Virginia (Fuller) Manning. After completing his early education in the public schools near his home Mr. Manning came to Fort Smith to pursue a commercial course in a business college and while thus employed he accepted the position of check boy in the dining-room of a hotel in order to pay for his meals. He afterward entered the service of the Eastman Hotel at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and there learned to cater to a very fastidious and discriminating patronage. Subsequently he was employed in the Queen Royal Hotel at Niagara, Canada, which received the wealthiest and most exclusive patronage of any hotel in the Dominion. He served there as room clerk and his painstaking efforts and unfailing courtesy marked him as one "to the manner born." Since that time he has been widely recognized as a most desirable man in connection with hotel management. His tact and agreeable qualities in meeting the public have been most potent forces in his success in hotel life. In 1917 he became assistant manager of the Marion Hotel at Little Rock, Arkansas, taking that position during the momentous days which marked the early preparations for war with Germany. Camp Pike was situated near Little Rock and his duties were increased to a notable degree in caring for relatives who came to the city in order to visit the boys who were training at Camp Pike. In 1919 Mr. Manning accepted the management of the Basin Park Hotel at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a popular summer resort in the Ozark mountains. A little later he was offered and accepted the management of the Goldman Hotel, the leading hostelry of Fort Smith. and has brought this hotel up to the present high standard, which he has maintained in connection with all of his hotel ventures. The Goldman has one hundred and fifty rooms, well appointed, maintains a splendid cuisine and excellent service in the cafe and is the center of almost all of the important social affairs, balls and other interests of similar nature in Fort Smith. Mr. Manning always demands that the high- est type of service be rendered to patrons and by reason of this the business of the hotel has constantly increased. He has introduced many improved methods into the Goldman and has made it a hotel which would be a credit to a city of much larger size than Fort Smith. He is at all times energetic and alert, watchful of the interests and comfort of patrons and quick to adopt any new method or improvement that he believes will be of advantage in hotel management. |