Chester House Hotel
Corner of Hamilton and King
Dalton, Whitfield County, GA
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Chester House Hotel, about 1865, as the Federal Troops left it
Photo courtesy of Vanishing Georgia, Georgia Archives
Chester House Hotel was built by William Patterson Chester Jr. in the 1840s at the corner of Hamilton and King Streets. It was originally three stories and built of brick. Chester House was well known for its good food and had many patrons. According to an article in the Dalton Daily Citizen by Marvin Sowder, there were 32 rooms upstairs. The main floor had servants quarters, a kitchen, a reception area and a dance hall. There was also a basement.
During the winter encampment of 1863-4, Confederate officers visited the Hotel and many reports were mailed from the Hotel. When the Federal troops arrived in Dalton came in May of 1864 the hotel did not fare so well. They took possession of the Chester House Hotel and stabled their horses in the lower floor, sleeping upstairs. You can see the remains of the hotel in the photograph above, taken about 1865.
Mr Sowder tells us, in one of the articles of the Dalton Daily Citizen, that by 1869 Mr. Chester had rented out a room that fronted the railroad for use as a meat market. He started to make repairs to the Hotel in 1872, as it reopened a year later under new management. The name was changed to the Metropolitan Hotel.
Mr Chester was born May 4, 1801 in Washington County, TN. He married Mary Snapp, 24 September 1822, Greene Co TN and had 13 children. He built his first hotel - called the Chester Inn - at Spring Place, Georgia. He built his second hotel at New Echota. After the Cherokee were removed west, William P Chester moved to Cross Plains (now Dalton). There he built his third hotel - The Chester House.
William Patterson Chester was involved
in local government and was appointed postmaster in 1858 and continued in
that position through the Civil War. Here is his Special Pardon request to
President Johnson in 1865. At the time of the Special Pardon, William
Chester was in Palmetto, Georgia. He and some of his family were back in Dalton by the 1870 census,
in better shape financially - at least according to the information given to the
census taker. He and his wife are buried in the West Hill Cemetery.
Sources: Georgia Archives Vanishing Georgia; The
Cherokee Nation by Ivan Allen (great grandson of William P Chester); The
Dalton Daily Citizen, August 27, 2011, article by Marvin Sowder; fold3.com;
The Dalton Daily Citizen, September 24, 2011, article by Marvin Sowder.
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