photograph courtesy memphis and shelby county room, benjamin l. hooks central library
The Raleigh Inn, at one time one of this area's finest resorts.
In the early 1800s a family traveling the old stagecoach road near present-day Raleigh stopped overnight because their baby had fallen ill. They found several natural springs in the woods, bathed the child in the cool water, and the next day the child recovered.
So the legend began, and Raleigh Springs became a magnet for Memphis society, who journeyed out into the country to “take the waters.” In 1842, Raleigh businessman David Coleman built a hotel at the springs, and in 1866 another hotel owner persuaded a St. Louis doctor to testify that the water did indeed have medicinal value.
The big hotel closed and new owners converted it into the Maddox Seminary for Young Ladies, and a few years later turned that into the James Sanitarium.
Events changed dramatically in 1892 when the tobacco-rich Duke family of North Carolina erected a grand hotel in the deep woods north of James Road. Costing more than $100,000 — an astonishing sum at the time — the Raleigh Inn was four stories tall, with turrets and balconies, and visitors proclaimed it the most beautiful hotel in the land. Graceful gazebos enhanced the springs, orchestras played on weekends, dancers flocked to the inn’s grand ballroom, and Raleigh became the place to be. The Memphis Transit Authority even extended a special streetcar line to the hotel.
photograph by vance lauderdale
For years, ruins of the old springhouses dotted the woods off James Road.
Then it all came to an end. The water table dropped, and the springs dried up. The big hotel closed and new owners converted it into the Maddox Seminary for Young Ladies, and a few years later turned that into the James Sanitarium. On the night of May 14, 1912, a patient smoking in bed set the place on fire, and the former hotel burned to the ground. The ending was rather ironic, considering that treatment at the sanitarium included battling addiction to tobacco — and the hotel itself had been constructed with Duke tobacco money.
If you know where to look — and I don’t suggest you try, since it’s private property — the crumbling ruins of the old springhouses still dot the dense woods, but almost nothing remains of the Raleigh Inn.
