Armstrong Hotel
This information is courtesy of the Chattooga County Mailing List
The following was taken from A History of Rome and Floyd
County by George
Macgruder Battey, Jr., originally published in 1922 and reprinted
several
times:
"Armstrong (Cherokee) Hotel. This
noted structure stands at the southwest corner of Second Avenue and East First Street.
It was built and
opened by R. T. Armstrong, of Birmingham, Ala., at a cost of
nearly $150,000. The first floor walls are of gray granite and the four
stories above of
brick. It is owned by the Rome Hotel Co., of which concern the
J. A. Rousavilles are the principal stockholders. For several years subsequent to
1900 the hotel was called The Cherokee, but recently the original name has been
used. As long as the younger generation can remember its ground floor
has sheltered
a barber shop--first, Ned Huggins' (Ned was also sexton of the First Presbyterian
Church), and now Slaughter McCain's--where enough hair and whiskers have been cut
to fill the Armstrong. In the corner Dick Cothran conducted a brokerage business
for quite a while.
"Some of the glories of The
Armstrong were recounted by W. S. Rowell in The Tribune-Herald of March 9, 1921,
as follows:
'The partial destruction by fire of one
section of the Armstrong hotel early yesterday morning injures for a short time
a building that has stood as
an ornament to this city for more than 30 years.
'When this hotel was constructed and opened, it was the largest
and finest in Northwest Georgia. It was a veritable capitol, as hotels went in
those days. It pushed Rome at one swoop from a town into the proportions of a city.
'The annual banquets of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association were long
famed for their feasting and their oratory.
'Among those
famous orators and notable men who have held forth here were Senators A. O. Bacon,
A. S. Clay and Hoke Smith, of Georgia; Senator Broussard, of Louisiana; Congressman
James Tawney, of Minnesota; John Temple Graves, Gordon Lee, Judge Wm. T. Newman,
Seaborn Wright, Senator Burton, of Ohio; Congressman Jno. L. Burnett, of Alabama;
Wm. J. Bryan, of Nebraska; David b. Hill, of New York, and a host of others
that we cannot now recall.
'The dining room of the hotel
has been used as a ball room by the local cotillion club, since its organization
and many other clubs and dance
organizations used it.
'When the hotel was first opened a large number of Rome's wealthiest and most prominent
families left their homes and resided there. For a while it
was the center around
which the social life of Rome revolved.
'Many times since its construction the hotel has been on fire, but
always heretofore the fire department has been able to control the flames.
The
inside architecture of the hotel was peculiarly sensitive to fire, being such as
readily drew a draft to any part of the building. This class of hotel
construction
is now out of date.'"
Compilation Copyright 1998 - Present by The GAGenWeb Project
This page was last updated on -03/23/2013