Those traversing the Western Kentucky Parkway to Paducah will find the drive worth the investment. Even ignoring the lush scenery along the way, the ultimate destination is a splendid one, with museums (including its famous quilt museum), historical sites and markers, lovingly preserved Southern architecture, the famous Port of Paducah floodwall murals, great eats and drinks, shopping, entertainment and fine lodging all coalescing in a distinct, invigorating river culture, where Kentucky comes to its tapered point, and four rivers converge. If you’re paying close attention or are maybe drawn by blithe spirits from the Jazz Age, there you also will find the Hotel Metropolitan.
When Tina Turner sang, “People on the river are happy to give,” she may have been thinking of towns such as Paducah, and she may even have been thinking of her stay at the Hotel Metropolitan, one of the so-called “Green Book” hotels of the past. While the book’s cover indeed was green, its name came from its author, Victor Hugo Green, a resourceful Harlem postman. When Black people traveled, especially in the South, they typically could not stay, eat or gas up where the white folks did and often sought to be under a safe roof by sundown (in “sundown towns,” of course, there were no safe roofs to get under).
The most obvious solution to this was the simplest: Don’t travel in the South. But that wasn’t an option for many, including Black entertainers on tour whose livelihoods depended on their willingness to brave the dangers of the road. That’s where the Green Book, or more properly the Negro Motorist Green Book (issued from 1936 to 1967), came in handy.
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While the Green Book’s benefits were not confined to travelers on the so-called “chitlin circuit,” the publication served as a guidebook for Black entertainers traveling from town to town in the Jim Crow South, welcomed and even cheered in one arena while banished in most others. This was true in Paducah, and it is why the Hotel Metropolitan came to be and lasted as long as it did.
In its heyday, guests of the hotel included luminaries such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Thurgood Marshall, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, B.B. King, Ike and Tina Turner, Sam Cooke, Cab Calloway, Jesse Owens and Moms Mabley, plus Negro League baseball stars such as Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson and star players from the Harlem Globetrotters. With stories of King bending guitar strings on the front porch and of Ellington tickling the ivories inside, the hotel may have been the most musical venue in the region’s history.
While the blessings of desegregation are apparent, there were some unintended victims. Integration of Major League Baseball signaled the demise of the legendary Negro Leagues and drained the life out of most Green Book establishments. As the latter lost their purpose, demolition or deterioration awaited those that weren’t quickly repurposed. Some establishments disappeared from our physical landscape, depriving us of visible evidence of the rich world memorialized in Mr. Green’s famous travel guide. In a 2019 piece, Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Joe Gerth bemoaned the demise of Louisville’s Green Book establishments, noting—while paraphrasing Louisville civil rights leader Raoul Cunningham—that “something should be done to preserve Green Book hotels or at least to remember their importance.”
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Enter Betty Dobson and the Hotel Metropolitan. Originally gifted to the then-new Upper Town Heritage Foundation by Paducah native and Basketball Hall of Famer Clarence “Big House” Gaines, the hotel has defied long odds by surviving all these years waiting for help to arrive. The foundation, co-founded and led by Dobson, has played a critical role in keeping the “open” sign on the front door and the hotel out of the wrecking ball’s path. If there’s a roof leak, Dobson will find funding to plug it. If there’s a potential donor, she’ll bring them some apple butter and serve them a slice of her delicious chess pie, always with a warm smile. She was there in 1996, before Gaines’ donation, when the building was condemned by the city and set for demolition three years later. According to the city inspector, the structure had a rotted deck, a roof that sagged about a foot, and severe interior damage due, in part, to roof leaks. He concluded that, while the building was not unsalvageable, its survival “will be costly and take time.” He was right on both counts.
The first step was a side-step—avoiding demolition. That took a vocal segment of the community focused on preserving Paducah’s African-American heritage in the face of a Paducah initiative to rid neighborhoods of dilapidated eyesores. Dobson and the Foundation did their part, as did sympathetic preservationists such as the late Bill Black Jr. They were able to hold back the tide long enough for supporters to form the foundation (courtesy of incorporator Anne Gwinn) and give it a shot at charitable fundraising. Those efforts proved spectacularly successful and included a large Save America’s Treasures federal grant and federal transportation enhancement funding that financed a phased overhaul of the structure that enabled it to become the museum it is today.
That was two decades ago. In the meantime, Dobson has kept the hotel afloat and in the public eye. She’s held civic events there, including lectures, open houses, fundraisers and other activities. She’s brought publicity by enlisting the support of former Negro League ballplayers who once were guests there and of Black performers, including a performance by Abby Burke at the Carson Center saluting the hotel and a plug from Cab Calloway’s grandson. She’s also made the hotel the centerpiece of Paducah’s annual August 8 celebrations.
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Dobson continues to perform her unforgettable one-woman show. While the museum is not regularly open to walk-ins, tours can be quickly arranged, and those are where Dobson shines the brightest. In front of visitors’ eyes, she incarnates the persona of Miss Maggie Steed, the original owner of the Hotel Metropolitan, and, as Miss Maggie, she tells the story of how a Black woman—through flattery, artful persuasion, steely determination and a little bit of trickery—acquired the real estate and then finagled construction of a hotel all by herself way back in 1908.
Dobson’s sometimes sassy performance and vivid storytelling inspire awe, laughter and a few tears. Close observers will discern that the traits that served Miss Maggie so admirably more than a century ago are not at all dissimilar from those employed by Ms. Dobson in her long and graceful fight against the odds to preserve the hotel. So maybe, that’s not all acting. After Dobson’s performance, inspired guests gladly open their wallets and checkbooks to help the cause.
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Getting from there (condemnation and planned demolition) to here for the Hotel Metropolitan has required a tireless refusal to let pessimism or bad luck reign, a “take-it-one-day-at-a-time” attitude in hopes that one of those days will be the one. Now that day has come. On Aug. 14, it was announced that the Mellon Foundation approved $1.34 million in grant funding for the benefit of the hotel, supplemented by an additional funding commitment from the city of Paducah of $250,000 per year for three years under a co-stewardship arrangement. The Mellon grant took much work and foresight and was secured by Dobson and Paducah Mayor George Bray, with assistance from Paducah native Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, and boosted by a letter of recommendation from faithful donor The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.
Dobson and Bray made the winning presentation in New York City in November 2023 and waited patiently to hear back. Support from the City of Paducah, including the mayor’s physical presence in New York City and its financial commitment, were no doubt game-changers.
The combined grant funding will be transformational. Dobson is a miracle worker who was long overdue for a miracle of her own, and now it’s arrived. As Betty says, “It’s a burden lifted off my shoulders.” The grant monies will pay for improvements to the main structure and to the Purple Room, an outbuilding that was used for performances and community gatherings. They will fund additional programming and personnel, helping to take some of the load off the hotel’s longtime champion and keeper of the flame, and will assure that it will survive beyond her. In the words of Bray, “This grant and the partnership with the city of Paducah set the foundation for a bright future for the Hotel Metropolitan and a boost in tourism for our community.”
Now it’s up to the foundation, the city, the community and all of us to make the hotel the destination it deserves to be. Painful memories may cause some to shy away, but reminders of our Jim Crow past also underscore the progress that has been made and that must be preserved and expanded. The hotel’s history attests to the fact that Paducah was a vibrant hub that hosted virtually every star from the Jazz Age, the best Negro League ballplayers and more. There was much joy on Paducah’s southside while the hotel was in business, and that joy has opened unlimited possibilities, much like what is taking place with Negro League baseball. That joy should be celebrated and not buried or forgotten.
With this grant funding, the Hotel Metropolitan’s second life as a museum is now secure, and—whether via the Western Kentucky Parkway, another route or just across town or down the street—it should be a destination for all.
Thank you, Betty.