Read House Archives

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Read House Archives

We are the archives for The Read House, Chattanooga's oldest, continuously running hotel. We hold 150 years of history within our walls.

Since January 1, 1872, we have served the hospitality, social, and civic needs of our city and the traveling public.

05/25/2025

Here is Sam Read’s physical from 1917. We talk about people from history all the time, but have something so personal for someone is such an amazing humanizing piece of history. This includes a letter from the doctor, the overall diagnostic report, and a recommended diet. Sam would have been 57 at the time. Let us know what you think.

01/27/2025

Good Morning, today I would like to introduce you to some more of the Read family. Sam Read and Lizzie Sims married February 24, 1887 and from their union they had four children.

Mary Hill Read (Dec 12, 1888-June 16, 1989)
Married John Edmondson Smartt on Nov 26, 1912

Elizabeth Nash Read (Zibba) Aug 21, 1890-Nov 2, 1970
Married Tom Crumley Gary on (Dec 16, 1918)

Margaret Caroline Read (Aug 12, 1892-Oct 11, 1963)
Married Dr. James Douglas Laurence McPheeters on Oct 10, 1923

Martin Sims Read (Sims) Sept 17, 1895-Aug 10, 1973
Lilie Mitchell Park on Jan 02, 1918

Below are some pictures of the Read children throughout their lives.

** The picture labeled The Read Children:
Sims and Elizabeth were mislabeled in this photo. Sims is on the far right and Elzabeth on the far left. The labeling was done many years later by Mary's son.

12/31/2024

Good morning, I hope everone had a Merry Christmas! Tomorrow, of course, is New Year's Day but it is also the Read House's 153 anniversary. I couldn't think of a better post to commemorate the day then talking about Samuel Roberson Read.

Sam Read was born on June 14, 1860, and grew up in McMinnville, TN. He then moved with his family to Chattanooga in late 1871 when his parents opened the first Read House. Sam grew up in the hotel and served in the steward's room at the age of 11. Later he would take over running the hotel in 1879 at the young age of 19. He went on to enlarge and modernize the hotel over the next 20 years and then built the current building on the same site in the 1920s. He died in 1942 at the age of 82 after running the hotel for over 63 years.

Fun fact: He loved to dance and was known as a supurb dancer at parties and balls.

Below are some pictures of Sam throughout his life that were found by his great granddaughter Betty.

12/20/2024

Good morning, I'm very happy to see that our last post was so well received. Today I want to share three items from the collection on loan to us. In 1887, Sam Read married a woman named Elizabeth Hamilton Sims known as "Lizzie". For several years I have been trying to track down a picture of Lizzie but could not find one. With the discovery of this new collection by Betty, I not only got one picture but four. Two of the pictures were shared in the previous post of the whole family together. here are a few items relating to her. Elizabeth Sims was born in 1862 in chattanooga. She was the daughter of well-known citizen Dr. P.D. Sims, more on him in a future post but I will include a picture of him now for reference. She married Sam Read in 1887 and they had four children: Mary, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Martin Sims Read. Tragically, Lizzie became ill in 1908 and died of cancer in 1909 at the age of 46. Included in this post are two pictures of Lizzie, the wedding invitation from their 1887 wedding, a news article about the wedding, and her obituary as well as a picture of Dr. Sims.

The first picture of her comes from 1895. The second picture is of Lizzie and her oldest daughter Mary in 1889.

12/17/2024

Good morning, I wanted to add the newspaper clipping about John and Caroline Read's fiftieth wedding anniversary. Please enjoy!

12/16/2024

Recently one of the Read family descendants came across three boxes worth of items relating to the Read House and the Read family.

Sam Read’s great granddaughter Betty was helping clean out her father’s house (he just turned 100!) and found old photographs, letters, business documents, and more. She donated the items that were about the Read House to us and has let us borrow the other items to make copies of.

Items include: Sam Read’s Bible from 1875, his 1917 physical report, pictures of the family-including never before seen photographs of his 1st wife Lizzie Sims-, letters, and an entire box of genealogical research he did in the early part of the 1900s. I’ll post pictures on here throughout the coming weeks and months.

Today I want to highlight a group of pictures taken in 1898 for John and Caroline Read’s 50th wedding anniversary. Most of the Read family assembled on the balcony of the old Read House and were photographed. A newspaper article talked about these pictures but until recently they were feared lost to time. Now we have a chance to share a bit of Chattanooga history with you!

11/26/2024

Take a tour of the Read House with this 18-page article from 1926. The article was published in Hotel Monthly, a periodical that gave updates in the world of hospitality. Originally published as the John Wiley Hotel Directory, the magazine was established in 1892.

Please enjoy and let me know what you find interesting!

W***y, John. The Hotel Monthly. Chicago: J. W***y,
Original copy held by the University of Wisconsin.

11/01/2024

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! It has been sometime since I last posted, and I wanted to apologize for that. I unfortunately don't have nearly enough time to post so frquently about Read House history. However, I would like to post a bit more regularly and bring you some more information about this grand dame. I will start with once a month and go from there.

Recently I stumbled across sone pictures of the Read house from 1926. They are housed in a digital repository in Chicago, and I wanted to share them. The Chicago History Museum houses over 375, 000 images and I encourage you to check it out, see the link below.

https://images.chicagohistory.org/?_gl=1%2Aq76vqb%2A_gcl_au%2AMTI1OTUwNTk5My4xNzMwMTQxNjI5%2A_ga%2ANTc1ODg5OTI4LjE3MzAxNDE2MzA.%2A_ga_LE22YBGVJ5%2AMTczMDQ4MjM0NC41LjEuMTczMDQ4MjM1MC41NC4wLjQzMjQ5OTQzNQ..

The pictures are housed in Chicago because the architects who designed the new Read House were, and still are, located there. These photos were taken by a photographer named Raymond W. Trowbridge in 1926 as the hotel was being prepped for the grand opening. Special thanks to the Chicago History Museum for all their hardwork in caring for and providing the puiblic with these images.

Chicago History Museum, ICHi-080888; Raymond W. Trowbridge, photographer

02/08/2022

Court Case, lets see what happens!

Address

107 W MLK Boulevard
Chattanooga, TN
37402

Telephone

+14789726611

Website

https://www.thereadhousehotel.com/

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