The Cordova daily times., 1923-01-08
HISTORIC HOTEL NOW HOUSES
 MANY OFFICES

Planters Hotel here last week,
 marked the passing of hostelry re-
 plete with tradition of the Middle
 West, and particularly the southland
 The "old Planters House." in which
 history has been made, will be con-
 verted into an office building. | Typewriters will click in rooms
 where Presidents slept, office boys
 will hustle across floors once strode
 by stately banqueters, and business
 men will plan battles of dollars in
 rooms in which political battles have
 been won and lost, and in which the
 capture of Camp Jackson was
 planned in 1861.
 The Planters, one of the best known hotels in the South and Mid | dle-West, was built by Evarist Maury in 1877. It then was two story frame structure, and it early acquired a reputation for the fine "oats and hay" given guests horses. l CTS House" in 1841, when four story structure was built at a cost of $1O0, ,000 This was acclaimed a "veritable palace" In 1894 the pres ent structure was completed at a cost of $1,80O,O00 under it's original name Planters Hotel"
 In the 4O's and sos the hostelry was the center of the social life of this section. Planters of the North and South brought their families here for the winter months to taste the joys of the hotels hospitality. The women, with their hoop skirts, gathered in circles in the parlors to quilt and embroider.
 After supper the tables were cleared, the carpets folded, the gas jets in their huge glass chandeliers lighted, and the grace and beauty ot Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama assembled for the minuet and the Virginia reel There were l Northerners too, but not in propor- tion to the number of Southern guests.
 i Stirring moments were brought to the Planters by the Civil War. Here Frank P. Blair and Nathaniel Lyon conferred preceding the capture of Camp Jackson, May 10, 1861. On June II, 1861, the conference which resulted in the fight of brother against brother" in Missouri was held at the Planters, when Lyon dra- matically declared his loyalty to the 1 North, and departed to enlist Miss ourians in the Federal Army. The Planters became a political battle-ground with the reconstruction days, and the hostelry has had generous share in every political cam paign since 1870.
 Old records show that such per sonages as the following singed the register of the hotel: Presidents Lin coin, Grant, Cleveland, Roosevelt and Taft, Martin Van Buren, King Edward V11., then Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, Jay Gould, and Will liam F. Cody.
 Writing of the hotel in his Ameri- can Notes, Mr Dickens said
 We went to a large hotel called The Planters with long passages ana skylights above the room doors for the free circulation of air. There were a great many boarders in it. and as many lights sparkled and | elistened from the windows down 1 into the street below when we drove up as if it had been illuminated on some occasion of rejoicing. It is an excellent house, and the proprletors have most bountiful notions of pro-
 viding the creature with comforts.
 Dining alone with my wine in our
 room one day I counted fourteen
 dishes on the table at once.'
 As one enters the Planter now he
 sees large key above the marble
 desk. It is four and one-half feet long, and tradition says it was used
 to open the first door of the Planters It was used in ceremony, in clos
 ing the hotel at midnight December 91. Below the key is a gilded horse
 shoe, welded by Bob Fitzimmons, the 1 fighter, as a token of good luck to
 the hotel.
 A number of the present employees
 have been with the hostelry for 25 1 to 30 years.