FIRE AT THE MAXWELL HOUSE

Christmas was a big deal for me growing up in Nashville during the 1950's and early 1960's. After the excitement of discovering what Santa had brought us that morning we would all get ready and drive over to my grandparents house in East Nashville for Christmas dinner and opening more presents. By late that afternoon the excitement had worn off and were just ready to go home and play with our toys. We usually didn't leave, however; until about 9:00 or 10:00 PM. Christmas night of 1961 is a Christmas that I will never forget. I was eleven years old and we were on our way to our home in West Nashville. We lived at 6222 Henry Ford Drive in Charlotte Park subdivision. After passing East High School we could see a bright orange glow lighting up the western sky in the direction of the Nashville skyline. As we approached the Victory Memorial Bridge over the Cumberland river flames were leaping high into the sky and the whole city glowed from the huge fire that would destroy one of the most historic buildings in Nashville, the Maxwell House Hotel. It sat at the corner of 4th Avenue North and Church Street. Until that time this was the biggest fire that I ever seen. In the glow of the fire you could see the streams of water shooting from the fireman's hoses over the roof of the building. Firemen were shooting water down into the fire from the Life & Casualty building across Church Street. The L&C Tower was the only skyscraper in Nashville at that time and it dominated the skyline. Fortunately there was only one death. A mans body was later found in the rubble.

Construction began on the Maxwell House by slaves in 1859 but it was not finished when the Civil War began in 1861. The hotel was financed by John Overton Jr., the son of John Overton Senior who was Andrew Jackson's campaign manager and one of the founders of Memphis. The hotel was called "Overton's Folly" because people thought that it was too opulent for a town of 17,000 people. The Maxwell House was named after Overton's wife Harriet Maxwell and it had been a barracks for Confederate soldiers during early months of the Civil War. At that time it was called Zollicoffer Barracks after Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer who was a Nashville native and an editor of one of it's newspapers. During this time the Maxwell House was also used as a hospital. After Nashville fell to the Union Army on February 25, 1862 it was used as a prison for Confederate soldiers. Six hundred prisoners were being held on the 5th floor and each morning they would assemble for breakfast. In a group they would walk down the staircase under guard to the first floor for their breakfast. On September 29, 1863 the men excitedly ran to the stairs to form for breakfast when the weight of over a hundred soldiers caused the staircase to collapse. Men fell in a heap from the fifth to the second floor killing several and severely injuring many more. Some were injured for life. Nashville was the main medical center for the Union Army in the Western Theater but a tragedy of that magnitude would tax the modern hospitals of Nashville today much less the hospitals in 1863. No matter if your sympathies were with the North or South everyone in the city worked together to provide care for the wounded. In April 1867 the Ku Klux Klan was formally organized. in room number 10 of the Maxwell House. The idea for the Klan was inspired in Pulaski Tennessee in 1866 but the hierarchy for the Klan was structured at the Maxwell House Hotel and Nathan Bedford Forrest was appointed the first Grand Wizard. This was when the organization became firmly committed to terrorism. He would formally disband it in 1869 and it would not be formally reformed until 1915 after the release of the movie "Birth of A Nation." The Klan was an arm of the Democrat party designed to keep the South under control of white Democrats. They fought to keep blacks from voting because they would vote for Republican candidates and they fought to keep white Republicans from organizing the Republican party in the South. Many white and black Republican's were lynched and terrorized during this period.

The hotel was completed after the war and formally opened in 1869 becoming the pride of Nashville. It had five stories and 240 rooms. There was a bath in every room, heat and gas lighting. Ladies and men's parlors, billiard rooms, bathrooms, shaving parlors, a grand ballroom and grand staircase. Gilded mirrors, chandeliers and many other luxuries. Eight presidents stayed there over the years that it was in operation. Andrew Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. Many famous people also stayed there. Among them Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Caruso, Sarah Bernhardt, Buffalo Bill, Tom Thumb, Cornelius Vanderbilt, George Westinghouse, Jane Adams, William Jennings Bryan, Annie Oakley and William Sydney Porter (O Henry). Last but not least the Maxwell House had a special blend of coffee that supposedly Theodore Roosevelt raved over and said that the coffee was "Good to the last drop" This may or not be true. I have read recently that it was a myth. It makes for a good story, however. Joel Cheek marketed his coffee through the hotel and it became so famous it developed into what we know today as Maxwell House Coffee. Our grandmother Ella Belle Frogge Brown's brother Jake Frogge worked at the Maxwell House for many years. I understand that he was in charge of the housekeeping staff and a few years ago I discovered some pictures that he had taken of hotel staff when he worked there. I am adding them to this article.

Joel Owsley Cheek was born in 1852 and died in 1835. He became a salesman for a wholesale grocery company and eventually became part owner. In 1901, along with some investors he opened a coffee shop in downtown Nashville. They persuaded the owners of the Maxwell House to serve their coffee to their guests and they could name the coffee after the Maxwell House. In 1917 they began using the slogan "Good To The Last Drop". Maxwell House coffee was sold to Postum Company for 42 million and it would soon be sold to General Foods. A story that cannot be confirmed alleges that when Theodore Roosevelt came to Nashville he visited the Hermitage and Maxwell House coffee was served to him during dinner. He liked it so much he supposedly said that this coffee is good to the last drop. Joel Cheek built a home in west Nashville which is called Cheekwood and it has been a tourist attraction open to the public as long as I can remember. The Maxwell House hotel was rebuilt in North Nashville. A bank building was built in the space that housed the Maxwell House. Over the years several banks have been located there and it is now Chase bank.