Read House Archives

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.

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!

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