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The Story of the Yellow-Brick Hotel By: Lewis O. Powell, IV Research Archivist, Troup County Historical Society
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o begin to understand the history behind the Hotel Colonial, step around to the Haralson Street side and look at the roofline. Jutting from the back of the main hotel building is a smaller roofline and this is where the hotel’s history begins, literally behind the hotel. This roof covers a home that dates to the Antebellum era. While the exact date is unknown, it is found on the 1860 map of the city and identified as the home of Mrs. E. E. Law. During the dark days of the Civil War as Sherman was waging his campaign to seize Atlanta in 1864, the area south of Atlanta was deemed a hospital zone by the Confederacy. As the region was nearly untouched by war and had an operational railroad, the Confederacy commandeered buildings, both public and private, throughout LaGrange for use as hospitals. One of those hospitals, referred to as the Law Hospital, may have occupied this house. It is also important to note that another hospital utilized the 1844 First Presbyterian Church building only yards away (this is the building that is currently occupied by Pretty Good Books).
Following the war, the house remained a private residence for many more years. It is unknown when the Young sisters took up residence, but the house may have served as a boarding house for a time before 1921. Three of the sisters, Anna, Ethel, and Lois, operated a millinery shop that opened around 1920. In December of 1921 an announcement was made on the opening of the Hotel Colonial, which was to be managed by Anna Young. Presumably, this operated out of the Young sister’s home. Surviving pages of the 1922 guest book attest to the fact that the hotel had only a handful of rooms, though they had many guests to occupy them. Business was booming, and the trio of young ladies decided a further investment was required. In 1925, the sisters contracted with the Atlanta architectural firm of Ivey & Crook to design a large, new hotel addition to their modest home. The firm consisted of principal designer Lewis “Buck” Crook and architectural engineer Ernest Daniel “Ed” Ivey, both of whom received their training at Georgia Tech. Both men interned with Neel Reid
The Hotel Colonial shortly after its construction in 1925 by Snelson Davis. Troup County Archives.
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and are now considered among the pantheon of Atlanta classicist architects at that time. The façade of the large, three-story yellow-brick Neoclassical hotel prominently features arches, an element found in a multitude of the firm’s designs including the Municipal Pool Pavilion (now Sweetland Amphitheatre), and the original Memorial Library building (behind the hotel on Church Street). On a piece of millinery stationary, the sisters added up the costs of the project and came to the sum of $96,400, a considerable amount of money at that time. Daniel Lumber Company was named the general contractor with two other local companies, Gilliam Electric and Black Plumbing slated as well. Construction began in the fall of 1925 and the new hotel opened on February 22, 1926. Just a week before the opening, bandleader John Philip Sousa and his band became the first guests of the hotel when they played here as part of their tour. The hotel opened with some fifty rooms, most with a private bath or connecting
Portrait of Anna Young, manager of the hotel. Photo circa 1910, from the Young Sisters Collection, Troup County Archives.
