Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 185: Hotel History: The Peabody (1869)

Stanley Turkel | October 6, 2017

by Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1. The Peabody Hotel (1869), Memphis, Tennessee (464 rooms) Following the Civil War, Memphis began the process of rebuilding. In 1869, Colonel Robert C. Brinkley opened a 75-room hotel which contained private baths, ballroom, saloon and lobby. Brinkley planned to name the hotel after himself but when he learned that his dear friend, philanthropist George Peabody, had died, he christened it The Peabody. Its lobby was soon filled with Memphis business and society leaders as well as plantation owners and riverboat gamblers. Presidents Andrew Johnson and William McKinley, Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee, Nathan Be...