Last year’s announced plans for a Columbus children’s museum in the old Elks Club Building and the city’s demolition of the Gilmer Inn focuses attention on one of Columbus’ most historic city blocks.
Block 1 North of Main (the Gilmer block) was a center of life in early Columbus. That block was occupied by 1819, when Gideon Lincecum built the first wood frame house in Columbus there. At that time, the principal street was the original 1817 Military Road, which is now Second Avenue North and is the street along the north side of the Gilmer block.
In 1820, the post office at John Pitchlynn’s Plymouth Bluff residence was closed and the Columbus Post Office was established. Lincecum was appointed postmaster, and by January 1821 his house served as the Columbus post office. Thomas Sampson moved to Columbus by 1819 and was living in a “double cabin” on the west end of the block. On the east end of the block — where the Gilmer Inn is — a hotel was opened about 1819, probably by Richard Barry.
Rev. George Shaeffer, who moved to Columbus in 1822, wrote a description of the town as it appeared when he arrived. He described the Gilmer block as, “On the north side of Main Street, west end there was a one story store kept by Capt. Kewen. The next building was a small retail whiskey shop; the next, Barry’s Tavern, a two story house of pretty large dimension, a frame but unfinished; it stood on the corner where the Gilmer Hotel is kept.”
The earliest Columbus map I have found is an 1820s map of the Gilmer block. It shows the Eagle Hotel on the east side and the Kewen property on the west side. Interestingly, it shows a 20-foot alley running east and west through the middle of the block. A circa 1837 city map again shows the Eagle Hotel on the east, but it has been joined by the Bell Tavern about where the present Elks Club building now stands.
In 1837, McCluer and Humphries opened a clothing store two doors west of the Eagle Hotel. In November 1837, the Eagle published a newspaper notice. It used the headline “List of Runaways” with the image used in runaway slave notices. The notice was a list of names and residences of people who had taken “French leave” of the hotel without paying. In 1839, the hotel advertised that the specialty of its table was oysters and that the Tuscaloosa and Pontotoc Stage Line office was located in the hotel.
By 1849, there were five building facing Main Street on the block. The Eagle Hotel remains on the east; going west from the hotel is the post office, Thompson’s, an unidentified building and W.H. Stevenson’s residence.
About 1860, John Gilmer began construction of a brick, four story hotel at the former site of the Eagle Hotel. At the time of the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, the hotel was still unfinished. The rooms had been framed in, but the walls were not finished or plastered.
After the Battle of Shiloh, more than 3,300 wounded soldiers were sent to Columbus, which became a major hospital center for the Confederate Army. The Gilmer was converted into a military hospital and, although it was classified as 450 beds, it overflowed with about 800 wounded after Shiloh.
After the war ended, the first three floors were completed and it opened as the Gilmer House. A 1917 description of the hotel’s parlor gives a hint of its grandeur: “The large parlor on the second floor is much as it was in the beginning, even to the great mirrors and the carved furniture imported more than 60 years ago from France.”
In 1883, a Pascagoula newspaperman stayed at the Gilmer and wrote: “One of the finest hotels in the South — the Gilmer House. This hotel is well kept, is supplied with water, gas and all the modern improvements, and the tables are furnished with all the market affords — in a word, the proprietor knows how to run a hotel.”
In 1907, the Gilmer was showing its age and underwent a major renovation. At a cost of $35,000, the fourth floor was finally completed. Hot and cold waters were provided in all rooms, as was steam heat; private toilets were installed in 23 of the 65 rooms; telephones were placed in each room; and an electric elevator was installed.
In 1962, the stately old hotel was torn down and a then-fashionable Downtowner Motor Inn was built on its site. The last 50 or so years have not been kind to the Downtowner, which is now an eyesore and about to be torn down by the city.
The motel will not be missed, but it is sad to think that for the first time in 197 years that spot will not be the site of a hotel.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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