05/25/2021
Welcome to our eighth stop on our Historic Preservation Month Tour, the old St. Nicholas Hotel. The St. Nicholas Hotel is located at 300-310 Washington St. The St. Nicholas Hotel was built in 1908 and designed by Bruce & Everett of Atlanta. The building was built close to the railroad station, which we will visit later in our tour, to serve railroad passengers and commercial business travelers. The ground floor of this three-story building was built for retail space. This retail space included stores and eating establishments to serve travelers. The first floor still contains the original stairway and hotel motifs. The second and third floor of the hotel space was the hotel that held 50 rooms total. The hotel entrance contained elaborate Corinthian-style columns and a tile floor that included the hotel’s original logo. The era of the St. Nicholas Hotel came to a dramatic end at around 4 o’clock in the morning of Saturday, February 10, 1940, when Albany and the Hotel were hit by the most vicious tornado that the area had ever experienced. Those who heard the tornado and lived to tell the story said that it sounded like “the noise of a thousand trains.” After the major tornado in 1940, the hotel reopened as the Hotel Lee, presumably named for General Robert E. Lee. In 1984 the hotel was purchased for rehabilitation again, it reopened as a transitional center. Now, the building is for sale and we can’t wait to see what it becomes!
