Maxwell House Hotel

​Click on the pictures above to see the grand Maxwell House Hotel. Today it is a bank, formerly called the SunTrust building. Though the Maxwell House Hotel no longer stands, listen as we tell some famous, and infamous, stories. Nashville’s first grand hotel, Maxwell House opened in 1869, just four years after the Civil War. With five stories and 240 rooms, the Maxwell House Hotel offered the newest amenities of the time: steam heat, gas lighting, and indoor bathrooms. The main entrance was located on Fourth Avenue, through the “Men’s Quarter.” The women’s entrance was around the corner on Church Street. The hotel featured parlors, billiard rooms, bars, shaving salons, and a grand staircase leading to the dining room. Its lavish lobby contained mahogany cabinetry, brass fixtures, and grand chandeliers. Seven U.S. Presidents stayed at the historic hotel over the years. 

Construction on the hotel had began a decade earlier, in 1859, as Nashville experienced significant growth. Colonel John Overton hired renowned architect Isaiah Rogers to design the hotel and named it after his wife Harriet, whose maiden name was Maxwell. Overton could not have predicted that the Civil War would begin two years later, and in 1862, the Union Army took control of the city. The army seized the unfinished hotel and used it as a prison, hospital, and barrack. In September 1863, the grand staircase of the hotel collapsed, killing several Confederate prisoners. There were also rumors that the hotel was haunted by a young southern belle and her two brothers. In a fit of rage, one of the brothers murdered both of his siblings. While trying to hide the bodies, the staircase collapsed and he was also killed. 

​​The dark and disturbing history of Maxwell House doesn’t end there. In 1866, Room #10 was the site of an infamous ceremony. In that room the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was inducted into the newly formed Ku Klux Klan and later appointed Grand Wizard. As chapters grew across the South, the first national meeting of the Klan took place at the Maxwell House Hotel in 1867. 

​​The hotel also played a role in the creation and development of a major coffee company. The coffee blend was started by Joel Cheek in 1892, and after the hotel agreed to carry it exclusively, Cheek renamed it Maxwell House Coffee. During President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1907 trip to Nashville, he was handed a cup of coffee. When asked if he wanted another cup of the Maxwell blend, he purportedly said, “Delighted! It’s good to the last drop!” Maxwell House Coffee, and its slogan “Good to the last drop,” remains one of the country’s most recognizable brands. 

​​Nearly a hundred years after its construction, the Maxwell House Hotel caught fire on Christmas night in 1961. The damage was beyond repair and the building was razed. The Millennium Maxwell House Hotel located on Rosa Parks Boulevard, built in 1979 and renovated in 2013, was named to pay homage to the old Maxwell House. Learn more about the Maxwell House Hotel on our Seedy Side and Printers Alley tour.

Cross diagonally from L&C Tower to your next stop, the Noelle Hotel at the corner of Church and Fourth Avenue North.