Hotel Black (c. 1902)

This three-story Hotel Black, sometimes called the Black Hotel, was located on Franklin Street right next to the present-day Candle Shop. Built at the turn of the 20th century, it operated through the construction of the Southwestern Proving Grounds before closing in late 1942. The concrete steps to the building still exist along the sidewalk, which serves as an informal entrance to a picnic area.

The Hotel Black was built around 1902 from lumber originally milled in Washington for the Garner Hotel up the railroad in Nashville, but a series of downtown fires there led to that building being built of brick. Opened by Lillie Trimble, the hotel was owned and operated by Mrs. E.B. Black for over 25 years. In 1935, the Black family moved to El Dorado and started leasing the hotel’s operation to others, finally selling to Vincent Foster and Dorsey McRae of Hope. The hotel stayed in operation through the construction of the Southwestern Proving Ground, but in December 1942 the Hotel Black was deconstructed and its lumber reused in Hope.

This corner of Block 5 was home to several hotels before the Black Hotel. At the time of statehood there was a two-story hotel owned by Daniel E. Williams, brother of John W. Williams who operated Williams’ Tavern at its original location near Blevins. They had another brother, Hardin, who operated the Cross Keys Tavern and Union Hotel in Fulton, and whose son Sam moved to Washington to work for the Washington Telegraph before moving to Chicago and writing his memoirs, The Printer’s Devil. A new multi-story Beller building, The Planter’s Hotel, was on this site by the 1870s, and hosted a black-owned grocery on its ground floors, but it was lost in the 1875 fire that affected four-and-a-half blocks of Washington’s business district.

"Black Hotel Here Being Torn Down; Was 40 Years Old." Washington Telegraph. December 4th, 1942.