History Spotlight: The Ralston Hotel

SOURCE: Ralston Hotel National Register Nomination, 2025. Prepared by Rosin Preservation, LLC.

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In the early 1900s, lodging options were concentrated in downtown commercial centers in both cities and small towns across the country. The location was convenient for salesmen and other travelers, especially those arriving by train. In 1910, Columbus boasted eight hotels and a population of 20,554.

In late April 1910, members of the Columbus Board of Trade (the local chamber of commerce) discussed the desire for a large commercial hotel. Thirty-four-year-old entrepreneur J. Ralston Cargill (1875-1944) led the discussions, believing that a new hotel would be good for Columbus businesses. As a result, the board commissioned a committee to study the existing hotel facilities so that “the body could issue a prospectus and promote a big new commercial hotel for the town, if conditions warranted it.” The results of the study apparently proved that conditions did warrant a new hotel.

On February 4, 1912, J. Ralston Cargill, Mayor Lucius H. Chappell, and seven other businessmen submitted articles of incorporation for the Columbus, Georgia Hotel Company to the Muscogee County Superior Court. The sole mission of the new company was the development of a new hotel. The courts approved the new corporation in mid-June, by which time the hotel company had a capital stock of $50,000 and an authorized capital of up to $1 million. While awaiting court approval of incorporation, the hotel company explored available sites within and on the periphery of downtown for the construction of the hotel. The group settled on the property at the northeast corner of 12th Street and 2nd Avenue, purchasing the parcels in July 1912.

Efforts to establish the hotel continued into 1913 when the Columbus, Georgia Hotel Company hired the New York City-based architecture firm, Ludlow & Peabody. William Orr Ludlow (1870-1954) and Charles S. Peabody (1880-1935) formed a partnership in 1909, specializing in commercial and institutional architecture. Their work included revival styles popular at the time, including Classical, Renaissance, and even Mediterranean. Although they were based and worked frequently in​ New York, the firm received commissions as far away as Sitka, Alaska (Sheldon Jackson College, 1910), Nashville, Tennessee (George Peabody College for Teachers, 1912), and Athens, Greece (Temple of Youth, 1931). Charles Peabody studied architecture at Columbia University after graduating from Harvard in 1900. While at Columbia, he enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris where in 1908 he graduated top of class. William Ludlow received a degree in mechanical​ engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1892 and worked as a draftsman for Carrère & Hastings until 1895​ when he started his own practice, Ludlow & Valentine. From 1909 until 1932, Ludlow & Peabody designed over 400​ buildings.

The Columbus, Georgia Hotel Company estimated that the Ralston Hotel would cost at least $250,000. By the spring of 1913, the company still needed to raise an additional $100,000. Another subscription campaign began in February and continued into early March; the hotel company sought pledges from local businessmen and businesses to finance the construction. Finally, on March 5, 1913, the Columbus Board of Trade celebrated the completion of the fundraising. By March 4, $84,000 had been pledged, and the remaining $16,000 was received in one day in amounts ranging from $50 to $5,000. The board members celebrated until 2:30 in the morning because with the funds, the hotel was assured. To the Board of Trade, this meant the beginning of a prosperous era for Columbus.

Groundbreaking for the Ralston Hotel occurred on February 4, 1914, exactly two years after the Columbus, Georgia Hotel Company filed their articles of incorporation. By June, the Southern Ferro-Concrete Company had completed the first eight stories of the Ralston Hotel. The developers, architects, and contractors then discussed the possibility of erecting two additional stories. The final structure included a one-and-a-half-story tall ninth story and a reinforced roof deck for use by visitors to the building.

The Ralston Hotel was nearly completed by September 1915. However, a change in ownership occurred before the building opened. The contract between the Columbus, Georgia Hotel Company and Loridans Southern Ferro-Concrete Company used the Ralston Hotel as collateral if subscriptions were not realized to pay for the project. By the beginning of September, the hotel company owed the contractor $107,000. The hotel company sued to collect unpaid funds. In the end, Loridans received the hotel, keeping the name in honor of J. Ralston Cargill, who spent five years realizing his dream. Loridans transferred ownership from the construction company to what became the Charles Loridans Foundation, Inc. The Columbus, Georgia Hotel Company appears to have dissolved shortly thereafter.

The 92-room, nine-story hotel opened for business in November 1915. Charles Johnson, a hotelier from Montgomery, Alabama, signed a ten-year lease with Loridans to manage the hotel. A grand opening celebration occurred at the end of the month. Guests toured the building to see the amenities, guest rooms, and furnishings, the latter of which the women of the Columbus Civic Development Society funded. A cabaret-style dance began the evening grand opening festivities in the first-floor dining room from 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM. This was followed by an elaborate dinner for city dignitaries and other guests, after which guests ascended to the ninth-floor ballroom for a formal dance that lasted until midnight.

The opening of the new hotel corresponded with a record-breaking construction boom in Columbus. In addition to the Ralston Hotel, other projects included a new school in the North Highlands neighborhood, two new theaters, a new packing and cold storage building, a new plant for Georgia Packing, a county-city hospital, residences, apartment buildings, two additional hotels, and new infrastructure.

As was common with commercial hotels, the Ralston Hotel intended to make the majority of its profits from its public spaces. The first-floor dining room and coffee shop were open to the public for meals, small gatherings, or large dinners. The ninth-floor ballroom was available for rent for conventions and balls. When not in use for private events, the ballroom hosted weekly dances.

The Ralston Hotel became the social venue in Columbus almost overnight. By 1916, Loridans began planning a small three- to four-story addition to increase revenue. Ground story retail would provide income from lessees, and upper story guest rooms would also double as sample rooms for traveling salesmen to showcase goods to potential clients. The eight-story addition was not completed until 1919. As with the original building, the Ralston Annex corresponded with a $10 million building boom in Columbus. The eight-story annex provided 100 additional rooms, as well as retail spaces along 2nd Avenue.

Newspaper articles and advertisements indicate that the Ralston Hotel employed at least three different managers between 1915 and 1935. Charles Loridans asked 32-year-old Oscar Betts, Jr., to take over management for one year in 1935; he stayed for twenty-seven. Betts received a degree in civil engineering from the Georgia School of Technology in 1924 and almost immediately began working for the Southern Ferro-Concrete Company. By the time of his appointment to hotel manager, Betts was part of the executive staff of the company and had frequently visited Columbus both to check on the Ralston Hotel and to oversee construction at nearby Fort Benning. Along with increasing amenities to guests, Betts also desired to keep the hotel at the center of the civic life of Columbus. Under Betts’ leadership from 1935 to 1962, the facility expanded its footprint as well as increased the number of visitors to the hotel.

The Columbus Sunday Ledger-Enquirer interviewed Betts in 1975 upon the announcement of the closing of the Ralston Hotel. Betts reminisced about his tenure as manager, stating that “nearly everything happens at some time in a hotel.” At the Ralston Hotel, that included celebrations, visiting dignitaries, and deaths. Betts recalled that the only thing that never happened was a birth, despite some close calls.

Prominent visitors included First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, government representatives from South American and Caribbean countries, and American politicians visiting Fort Benning. The hotel hosted visiting sports teams. The University of Georgia and other college football teams stayed at the hotel when they played Auburn, and when Columbus boasted a farm team for the St. Louis Cardinals, visiting teams also rented rooms. During his time as manager, Betts oversaw an average of 175 employees who assisted in all areas of the hotel’s amenities from food service to guest relations.

The year 1939 marked the beginning of a three-year phased expansion of the hotel. The city of Columbus issued a building permit to Loridans on April 25, 1939, for “the construction of a modern combination convention hall and ballroom addition to the structure, and for interior changes on the hotel’s first floor.” The first floor of the Ralston Annex was to be reconfigured to be an entry foyer space to the hall that could accommodate up to 350 people. Loridans and Betts constructed this $15,000 addition to meet local demands for a modern auditorium facility and to solicit additional conventions to Columbus. The addition was expected to be open by September 1939.

Multiple factors played into the need for additional hotel space. The city continued to grow rapidly both in terms of acreage and population, which by 1940 had reached 53,280 people not including the population of surrounding communities and Fort Benning (est. 50,000). As America prepared to enter World War II, Fort Benning expanded to accommodate more soldiers and officers, who would flock to Columbus for rest and relaxation. Tourist travel had also increased around the time, as US-27 Highway was constructed and improved in the mid-1930s. Columbus was the center of the 22-county region that spanned the state line between Georgia and Alabama and was therefore perfectly situated for conventions, be they regional, statewide, or national. Loridans and Betts sought to capitalize on the demand through the expansion of the Ralston Hotel.

World War II did not damper the activity and busyness of the Ralston Hotel. The Columbus Sunday Ledger-Enquirer interviewed Betts in July 1943, two years after the additions opened, for a story related to the success of the hotel. Betts estimated that over 10,000 people rented beds in the hotel every month, with an additional 65,000 using the facility for other reasons from meetings to dining to retail, even during the strict rationing associated with World War II. On Christmas Day, 1942, the Ralston Hotel was one of the few eating establishments open. Even though rationing decreased the food options, guests began lining up at 7:00 am. An estimated 800 guests had filed through the hotel dining rooms by 6:00 p.m. Betts, the hotel auditor, and the head housekeeper eventually stepped in as waiters, and other employees who had the holiday off volunteered their time to help feed the crowds. Betts later recalled that the hotel never had an empty room during the war.

After the war, attention turned more to the tourist industry. Betts had led the effort to bring an airport to Columbus in 1943, anticipating an increase in tourism after the war. He also championed the establishment and improvement of the US-27 Highway. Established in 1934, this highway in Georgia connected Chattanooga, Tennessee, with Tallahassee, Florida, and traversed twenty counties in western Georgia, including Muscogee, fully following State Route 1. The highway was two blocks east of the hotel. The local chapter of the Highway 27 Association, the Merchants Association, and the Chamber of Commerce championed both the beautification and capitalization of the highway through Columbus. Betts claimed in 1947 that the worst portion of the highway was that which ran through Muscogee County. By 1951, traffic along the highway had increased. The Ralston Hotel directly benefitted from the tourism industry.

The hotel continued to host conventions and guests into the 1950s. Guestroom rates ranged from $1.50 to $4.00 a night. The Chamber of Commerce frequently held banquets and meetings in the hotel. Advertisements for the hotel in the 1950s boasted that the entire facility was air-conditioned and ideal for conventions, business meetings, banquets, dinners, and dances.

In 1954, the Ralston Hotel became associated with the Albert Patterson murder investigation. Patterson was a prominent Alabama attorney and politician based in Phenix City just across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus. Phenix City had a decades-old reputation as a corrupt city whose government leaders encouraged and benefited from illicit activities. Patterson served as a state senator from 1947 to 1951. He ran for state attorney general in 1954, promising to target the institutionalized corruption in Phenix City. Just a week after winning the Democratic state primary on June 18, Patterson was shot three times as he was leaving his Phenix City office, dying almost immediately.

Alabama Governor Gordon Persons declared martial law in the town and quickly dispatched special prosecutors and agents of what is now the Alabama Bureau of Investigation to investigate the murder, removing control from local authorities, who were reportedly running a sham investigation. The Ralston Hotel served as the local investigatory center for the Patterson murder. Officially, the group of six men and two women could not find adequate office space in Phenix City. Realistically, the group feared retaliation. The east end of the fourth floor became a heavily guarded headquarters centered on room 444 within the 1941 addition. Within six months of the Patterson slaying, over 700 indictments of corruption were handed down by a grand jury and three men were charged with the murder: outgoing state attorney general Si Garrett, Russell County Circuit Solicitor Arch Ferrell, and Russell County deputy sheriff Albert Fuller. Fuller was convicted of first-degree murder in March 1955 and sentenced to life in prison; Ferrell was acquitted, and Garrett was never brought to trial due to poor health. Albert Patterson’s son, John, stood in for his father in the 1954 attorney general election and became governor in 1958. The death of the elder Patterson ultimately led to the dismantling of the crime syndicate in Phenix City, as well as heavily influenced the state government’s oversight of local governments.

The Charles Loridans Foundation retained ownership of the Ralston Hotel until 1962. That spring, a group of 18 local businessmen purchased the Ralston Hotel, hoping to continue the hotel and meeting place functions. Longtime manager Oscar Betts resigned from his position at the time. At the age of 60, Betts had spent most of his career working for the Loridans Foundation; a change in ownership seemed a good time to change managers. However, Betts also saw the inevitable decline of the hotel. New, modern hotels competed with the Ralston Hotel for Columbus business and overnight guests. Recalling the situation in the early 1960s, Betts noted that weekdays remained busy, but weekends became increasingly quiet. Betts saw an industry change in marketing as contributing to this. Before the 1960s, salesmen set up sample rooms within the hotel and invited merchandisers into the hotel. After the 1960s, it became common for buyers to attend conventions at the Merchandise Mart in Atlanta and buy from salesmen that way. This eventually eliminated the ubiquitous salesmen who frequented hotels like the Ralston Hotel.

In August 1974, the hotel closed to overnight guests but allowed long-term residents to continue their residency. However, by January 1975, the hotel owners announced the permanent closure of the 60-year-old Columbus landmark due to economic viability issues; only the bar made a profit, but this was not enough to sustain the hotel.

In early 1975, the Columbus Housing Authority purchased the Ralston Hotel, converting it into the Ralston Towers, a senior housing facility. Existing hotel rooms were adapted into private studio and one-bedroom units, and residents utilized the existing kitchen and dining room for meals instead of having personal kitchens. A ten-story brick and stone addition to the north of the Ralston Annex provided additional rooms. Ralston Towers closed in early 2020.

It was acquired by Infinity Real Estate Advisors, LLC out of Atlanta in 2021 for affordable housing. The renovation was completed in 2023.