Peabody Hotel

The Peabody Memphis is a luxury hotel in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The hotel is known for the "Peabody Ducks" that live on the hotel rooftop and make daily treks to the lobby. The Peabody Memphis is a member of Historic Hotel of America the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.HistoryFirst Peabody HotelThe original Peabody Hotel was built in 1869 at the corner of Main and Monroe Streets by Robert Campbell Brinkley, who named it to honor his friend, the recently deceased George Peabody, for his contributions to the South. The hotel was a huge success, and Brinkley gave it to his daughter Anna Overton Brinkley and her husband Robert B. Snowden as a wedding gift not long after it opened. The hotel had 75 rooms, with private bathrooms, and numerous elegant public rooms. Among its guests were Presidents Andrew Johnson and William McKinley and Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Confederacy, lived there in 1870 when he worked as president of an insurance company. The hotel closed in 1923 in preparation for a move one block away. The building was demolished and Lowenstein's department store was constructed there.Current Peabody hotelThe current Peabody Hotel building, on Union Avenue, is an Italian Renaissance structure designed by noted Chicago architect Walter W. Ahlschlager. Construction began less than a month after the old hotel closed. The new hotel was built on the previous site of the Fransioli Hotel, a structure which looked nearly identical to the original Peabody Hotel. The new hotel opened on September 1, 1925.