The Battle House Hotel

The Battle House Hotel, now known as The Battle House Renaissance Mobile Hotel, is a historic hotel building in Mobile, Alabama. The current building was built in 1908 and is the second hotel to stand in this location, replacing an earlier Battle House that was built in 1852 and burned down in 1905. It is one of the earliest steel frame structures in Alabama.HistoryThe first Battle House Hotel was opened by James Battle and his two half-nephews John and Samuel on November 13, 1852 on the site of a former military headquarters set up by Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812. The Battle brothers' new hotel was a four-story brick building, with a two-story gallery of cast iron. The site had been home to two other hotels in the years between Andrew Jackson and the Battle brothers, the Franklin Hotel and the Waverly Hotel. Both of these earlier structures had burned.A particularly notable event for the hotel occurred when Stephen A. Douglas was a guest of the hotel the night that he lost the presidency to Abraham Lincoln. The first Battle House also had such notable guests as Henry Clay, Jefferson Davis, Millard Fillmore, Oscar Wilde and Winfield Scott. A National Weather Service station was established at the Battle House in 1880 and electric lighting was added in 1884. The hotel was renovated in 1900. Then, after more than 50 years in service, the hotel burned to the ground on February 12, 1905.