Andrew Johnson Building
Encyclopedia
The Andrew Johnson Building is a high-rise office building in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee
, USA. Completed in 1930, the 203 feet (61.9 m) structure was Knoxville's tallest building for nearly a half-century. The building was originally home to the Andrew Johnson Hotel, and is now used for office space by Knox County
. In 1980, the Andrew Johnson Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places
.
Named for President Andrew Johnson
, the Andrew Johnson Hotel was Knoxville's premier hotel from the time of its completion through the 1960s. In its early years, the hotel was popular with foreign dignitaries visiting Knoxville to inquire about the newly created Tennessee Valley Authority
, as well as with tourists en route to the newly created Great Smoky Mountains National Park
. Country music
singer Hank Williams spent the last night of his life at the hotel in 1952. The studios of WNOX
, which played a role in the early development of country music, were located in the Andrew Johnson in the late 1930s, and musicians such as Roy Acuff
became regional stars broadcasting from the building.
900-block, and shares a central courtyard with the adjacent Riverview Tower
. The building's eighteen stories consist of fifteen floors, a mezzanine
, and a two-story penthouse
. The building is rectangular in shape, with a recess running up the middle of the west facade. The ground floor extends out beyond the rest of the building to provide a base for the unique second story, which includes an open-air pavilion. While most of the building's exterior consists of brick, the ground floor's Gay Street facade is sheathed in concrete cast to appear as rusticated
stone.
The second story of the Andrew Johnson was designed as the main story, and originally contained the hotel's lobby and front desk, a ballroom, and a pavilion. The pavilion consists of a five-bay arcade
, with arches flanked by Ionic pilasters
. Each side of the pavilion was originally flanked by terraces and balustrades, which were replaced when the ballroom was expanded in the 1960s. The second story is higher than the building's other stories to accommodate a mezzanine, which overlooks the lobby.
Most of the windows for floors four through fifteen are simple, rectangular windows, with the exception of the fourteenth-floor windows, which are topped by small arched pediment
s. Atop the building is the penthouse
, which is seven bays wide, and is adorned with brick Ionic pilasters. The second story of the penthouse originally had oval windows, but these have been replaced with simple rectangular windows. From the mid-1930s until the late-1970s, a large neon sign reading "Hotel Andrew Johnson" stood atop the building.
, an architectural firm responsible for a number of prominent buildings and houses in the Knoxville area, including the Knoxville Post Office
on Main and the Church of the Immaculate Conception
on Vine. By 1927, only seven stories of the hotel had been completed, and construction was briefly halted because of financial issues. J. Basil Ramsey, president of the Holston Union Bank
, managed to raise the necessary funds, however, and the hotel was completed shortly afterward.
Business at the Andrew Johnson received a boost with the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
in 1932 and the formation of the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) in 1933. The hotel was located a few blocks from U.S. Route 441
, which connects Knoxville to the national park's main entrance. TVA's headquarters, also located a few blocks from the hotel, drew a steady stream of curious foreign diplomats and activists to Knoxville during the 1930s and 1940s, among them French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre
, who stayed at the hotel in 1945. The rise of automobile travel in the late 1920s brought large numbers of travellers to Knoxville via the Dixie Highway
, with many preferring the Andrew Johnson over the rough motels along the highway's Kingston Pike stretch.
For most of its early history, the Andrew Johnson was the choice hotel for celebrities travelling through Knoxville. During a stay at the Andrew Johnson in 1936 (the year before her disappearance), aviatrix Amelia Earhart
remarked to a reporter that she didn't expect to live to old age. Swiss travel writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach
probably stayed at the hotel while writing her story, "Auf der Schattenseite von Knoxville" ("The Shadow Side of Knoxville"). In February 1943, Russian pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff
stayed at the Andrew Johnson after giving the last recital of his career at the nearby University of Tennessee
's Alumni Gymnasium.
Perhaps the most well-known stay at the Andrew Johnson Hotel was that of country music singer Hank Williams, who spent the last night of his life at the hotel, and whose death is the source of numerous stories and local legends in Knoxville. Williams and his driver, Charles Carr, checked into the hotel on the evening of December 31, 1952. At some point during the night, Williams grew ill and began convulsing, and a doctor called to the hotel gave Williams injections of Vitamin B12
and morphine
. At 10:45 P.M., Williams and Carr checked out and headed north for Canton, Ohio
, where Williams was scheduled to perform the next day. By the time car reached Oak Hill, West Virginia
, around dawn of the following morning, however, Williams had died.
Throughout much of the 1930s, radio station WNOX
broadcast from the Andrew Johnson's 17th floor. The station's popular show, Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, had featured performers such as Roy Acuff
and Homer and Jethro
, and listeners in downtown Knoxville frequented the hotel to see the show's broadcasts. By the late 1930s, the station was drawing some 1,000 fans to the station each day, flooding the hotel's elevators. After guests began to complain, the hotel's management asked the station to move.
In the 1940s, R. J. Reynolds, Jr. (1906–1964), the son of the tobacco magnate, purchased the Andrew Johnson. After his death, his widow maintained ownership until 1973. By this time, Knoxville's Hyatt Regency (now the Knoxville Marriott) had usurped the Andrew Johnson as the city's premier hotel, and the Andrew Johnson began to decline. The hotel changed owners several times throughout the 1970s, and in the 1980s, the building was renovated as an office building by the Aetna Casualty & Surety Company.
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, USA. Completed in 1930, the 203 feet (61.9 m) structure was Knoxville's tallest building for nearly a half-century. The building was originally home to the Andrew Johnson Hotel, and is now used for office space by Knox County
Knox County, Tennessee
Knox County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Its 2007 population was estimated at 423,874 by the United States Census Bureau. Its county seat is Knoxville, as it has been since the creation of the county. The county is at the geographical center of the Great Valley of East Tennessee...
. In 1980, the Andrew Johnson Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Named for President Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
, the Andrew Johnson Hotel was Knoxville's premier hotel from the time of its completion through the 1960s. In its early years, the hotel was popular with foreign dignitaries visiting Knoxville to inquire about the newly created Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
, as well as with tourists en route to the newly created Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North...
. Country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
singer Hank Williams spent the last night of his life at the hotel in 1952. The studios of WNOX
WNOX
WNOX is a radio station in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. It broadcasts a news-talk format.WNOX operates a 100,000-watt transmitter, located on Cross Mountain north of Briceville, Tennessee...
, which played a role in the early development of country music, were located in the Andrew Johnson in the late 1930s, and musicians such as Roy Acuff
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the King of Country Music, Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the star singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful.Acuff...
became regional stars broadcasting from the building.
Design
The Andrew Johnson Building stands at the southwest corner of Gay Street'sGay Street (Knoxville)
Gay Street is a street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, that traverses the heart of the city's downtown area. Since its development in the 1790s, Gay Street has served as the city's principal financial and commercial thoroughfare, and has played a primary role in the city's historical and cultural...
900-block, and shares a central courtyard with the adjacent Riverview Tower
Riverview Tower
The Riverview Tower is an office high-rise located at 900 Gay Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Completed in 1985, the 24-story structure is Knoxville's second-tallest building, and along with its sister building, the First Tennessee Plaza, anchors Knoxville's downtown office market...
. The building's eighteen stories consist of fifteen floors, a mezzanine
Mezzanine (architecture)
In architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine is low-ceilinged and projects in the form of a balcony. The term is also used for the lowest balcony in...
, and a two-story penthouse
Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.-History:...
. The building is rectangular in shape, with a recess running up the middle of the west facade. The ground floor extends out beyond the rest of the building to provide a base for the unique second story, which includes an open-air pavilion. While most of the building's exterior consists of brick, the ground floor's Gay Street facade is sheathed in concrete cast to appear as rusticated
Rustication (architecture)
thumb|upright|Two different styles of rustication in the [[Palazzo Medici-Riccardi]] in [[Florence]].In classical architecture rustication is an architectural feature that contrasts in texture with the smoothly finished, squared block masonry surfaces called ashlar...
stone.
The second story of the Andrew Johnson was designed as the main story, and originally contained the hotel's lobby and front desk, a ballroom, and a pavilion. The pavilion consists of a five-bay arcade
Arcade (architecture)
An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....
, with arches flanked by Ionic pilasters
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
. Each side of the pavilion was originally flanked by terraces and balustrades, which were replaced when the ballroom was expanded in the 1960s. The second story is higher than the building's other stories to accommodate a mezzanine, which overlooks the lobby.
Most of the windows for floors four through fifteen are simple, rectangular windows, with the exception of the fourteenth-floor windows, which are topped by small arched pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
s. Atop the building is the penthouse
Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.-History:...
, which is seven bays wide, and is adorned with brick Ionic pilasters. The second story of the penthouse originally had oval windows, but these have been replaced with simple rectangular windows. From the mid-1930s until the late-1970s, a large neon sign reading "Hotel Andrew Johnson" stood atop the building.
History
The Adair Corporation of Atlanta began planning a large hotel (initially named the "Tennessee Terrace") at the corner of Gay and Hill as early as 1918, but lack of financing continuously stalled the project. The hotel was designed by Baumann & BaumannBaumann family (architects)
The Baumann family was a family of American architects who practiced in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It included Joseph F. Baumann , his brother, Albert B. Baumann, Sr. , and Albert's son, Albert B. Baumann, Jr....
, an architectural firm responsible for a number of prominent buildings and houses in the Knoxville area, including the Knoxville Post Office
United States Post Office and Courthouse (Knoxville, Tennessee)
The United States Post Office and Courthouse, commonly called the Knoxville Post Office, is a federal building located at 501 Main Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Constructed in the early 1930s for use as a post office and federal courthouse, the building contains numerous Art Deco and...
on Main and the Church of the Immaculate Conception
Church of the Immaculate Conception, Knoxville, Tennessee
The Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception is a historic church located at 414 West Vine on Summit Hill in Knoxville, Tennessee.The first Roman Catholic parish in Knoxville was founded circa 1855 on the site of the present sanctuary. Father Abram Joseph Ryan , the Poet-Priest of the...
on Vine. By 1927, only seven stories of the hotel had been completed, and construction was briefly halted because of financial issues. J. Basil Ramsey, president of the Holston Union Bank
The Holston
The Holston is a condominium high-rise located at 531 South Gay Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Completed in 1913 as the headquarters for the Holston National Bank, the fourteen-story building was the tallest in Knoxville until the construction in the late 1920s of the Andrew Johnson Hotel,...
, managed to raise the necessary funds, however, and the hotel was completed shortly afterward.
Business at the Andrew Johnson received a boost with the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North...
in 1932 and the formation of the Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
(TVA) in 1933. The hotel was located a few blocks from U.S. Route 441
U.S. Route 441
U.S. Route 441 is a spur route of U.S. Route 41. It currently runs for 939 miles from U.S. Route 41 in Miami, Florida to U.S. Route 25W in Lake City, Tennessee. Between its termini, US 441 passes through the states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee...
, which connects Knoxville to the national park's main entrance. TVA's headquarters, also located a few blocks from the hotel, drew a steady stream of curious foreign diplomats and activists to Knoxville during the 1930s and 1940s, among them French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, who stayed at the hotel in 1945. The rise of automobile travel in the late 1920s brought large numbers of travellers to Knoxville via the Dixie Highway
Dixie Highway
The Dixie Highway was a United States automobile highway, first planned in 1914 to connect the US Midwest with the Southern United States. It was part of the National Auto Trail system, and grew out of an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final result is better understood as a small network of...
, with many preferring the Andrew Johnson over the rough motels along the highway's Kingston Pike stretch.
For most of its early history, the Andrew Johnson was the choice hotel for celebrities travelling through Knoxville. During a stay at the Andrew Johnson in 1936 (the year before her disappearance), aviatrix Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
remarked to a reporter that she didn't expect to live to old age. Swiss travel writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach
Annemarie Schwarzenbach
Annemarie Schwarzenbach was a Swiss writer, journalist, photographer and traveler.- Life :Annemarie was born in Bocken, near Zurich, Switzerland...
probably stayed at the hotel while writing her story, "Auf der Schattenseite von Knoxville" ("The Shadow Side of Knoxville"). In February 1943, Russian pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
stayed at the Andrew Johnson after giving the last recital of his career at the nearby University of Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
's Alumni Gymnasium.
Perhaps the most well-known stay at the Andrew Johnson Hotel was that of country music singer Hank Williams, who spent the last night of his life at the hotel, and whose death is the source of numerous stories and local legends in Knoxville. Williams and his driver, Charles Carr, checked into the hotel on the evening of December 31, 1952. At some point during the night, Williams grew ill and began convulsing, and a doctor called to the hotel gave Williams injections of Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12, vitamin B12 or vitamin B-12, also called cobalamin, is a water-soluble vitamin with a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system, and for the formation of blood. It is one of the eight B vitamins...
and morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
. At 10:45 P.M., Williams and Carr checked out and headed north for Canton, Ohio
Canton, Ohio
Canton is the county seat of Stark County in northeastern Ohio, approximately south of Akron and south of Cleveland.The City of Caton is the largest incorporated area within the Canton-Massillon Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, where Williams was scheduled to perform the next day. By the time car reached Oak Hill, West Virginia
Oak Hill, West Virginia
Oak Hill is a city in Fayette County, West Virginia, United States and is the primary city within the Oak Hill, WV Micropolitan Statistical Area. The micropolitan area is also included in the Beckley-Oak Hill, WV Combined Statistical Area. The population was 7,589 at the 2000 census...
, around dawn of the following morning, however, Williams had died.
Throughout much of the 1930s, radio station WNOX
WNOX
WNOX is a radio station in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. It broadcasts a news-talk format.WNOX operates a 100,000-watt transmitter, located on Cross Mountain north of Briceville, Tennessee...
broadcast from the Andrew Johnson's 17th floor. The station's popular show, Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, had featured performers such as Roy Acuff
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the King of Country Music, Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the star singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful.Acuff...
and Homer and Jethro
Homer and Jethro
Homer and Jethro were the stage names of American country music duo Henry D. Haynes and Kenneth C. Burns , popular from the 1940s through the 1960s on radio and television for their satirical versions of popular songs...
, and listeners in downtown Knoxville frequented the hotel to see the show's broadcasts. By the late 1930s, the station was drawing some 1,000 fans to the station each day, flooding the hotel's elevators. After guests began to complain, the hotel's management asked the station to move.
In the 1940s, R. J. Reynolds, Jr. (1906–1964), the son of the tobacco magnate, purchased the Andrew Johnson. After his death, his widow maintained ownership until 1973. By this time, Knoxville's Hyatt Regency (now the Knoxville Marriott) had usurped the Andrew Johnson as the city's premier hotel, and the Andrew Johnson began to decline. The hotel changed owners several times throughout the 1970s, and in the 1980s, the building was renovated as an office building by the Aetna Casualty & Surety Company.
Offices
The Andrew Johnson Building, which has 140000 square feet (13,006.4 m²) of office space, currently houses offices for Knox County. The primary occupant is Knox County Schools, the offices of which utilize fourteen of the building's eighteen floors. The building also houses the Finance, Property Development, and Telecommunications offices of the county's Public Building Authority, human resource offices for the Knox County Sheriff's Department, and the county's Probation and Pre-Trial services.See also
- General BuildingGeneral BuildingThe General Building, also called the Tennessee General Building or the First Bank Building, is an office high-rise located in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Constructed in the mid-1920s, the 15-story building is the only high-rise designed by Charles I...
- Mechanics' Bank and Trust Company BuildingMechanics' Bank and Trust Company BuildingThe Mechanics' Bank and Trust Company Building is an office building located at 612 South Gay Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Built in 1907 for the Mechanics' Bank and Trust Company, the building now houses offices for several law firms and financial agencies...
- Medical Arts BuildingMedical Arts Building (Knoxville, Tennessee)The Medical Arts Building is an office high-rise located at 603 Main Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Completed in 1930, the 10-story structure originally provided office space for physicians and dentists, and at the time was considered the "best equipped" medical building in the South...