GREENBACKS AND THE WILLARD HOTEL

   

For more than 150 years, the Willard hotel, across the street from the White House, has been the site of political wheeling and dealing, international delegations and more than its fair share of intrigue and violence.

Here's a history of the hotel author Nathaniel Hawthorne said more justly could be called the center of Washington than either the Capitol or the White House or the State Department.

The hotel itself has an only-in-Washington origin story, involving a precedent-setting Supreme Court case. Though a humble hotel comprising six connected rowhouses began there as early as 1817, it didn't take the name Willard's City Hotel until 1847, when Henry Willard took over the lease. Soon, he replaced the rowhouses with a four-story building, making it the perfect hangout for politicos. In 1854, he agreed to buy the land, though he didn't actually make the purchase for another 10 years, toward the end of the Civil War, when U.S. bank notes were wildly depreciated. The resulting contract dispute went all the way to the Supreme Court; ultimately, the court ruled that Willard had to pay in gold, but he walked away with his hotel.

   

In 1901, the Willard was torn down and rebuilt as the 12-story Beaux-Arts building that now stands.

To read the complete article, see:
The hotel where Trump allies plotted to overturn the election has a wild and sometimes violent history (https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/10/26/willard-hotel-dc-history-trump/)

 

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