The impressive 1837 building on the corner at 1200 Water Avenue is the St. James Hotel, the only existing antebellum riverfront hotel in the Southeast.  Renovation of the hotel started in 1994 and was completed in 1997 as a public-private partnership.  The hotel boasts a restaurant, drinking room, ballrooms and great views.  The common areas are furnished with period antiques and the guestrooms with period reproductions.  Absent during the War Between the States the hotel's owner, Dr. James Gee, entrusted Benjamin Sterling Turner, his former slave to run the St. James Hotel.  Mr. Turner, who owned a livery stable, was the first African-American elected in the United States Congress.  In 1865 the Union Army seized the city and set up it's headquarters in the hotel.  After the War, the hotel flourished until the completion of the magnificent Hotel Albert, (under construction prior to the War Between the States) which caused the St. James Hotel to close.  Later other businesses occupied this site until it's renovation.  An interesting fact is that the outlaws Jesse and Frank James were visitors to the St. James Hotel.  A portrait of Miss Lucinda, Jesse James' mistress and a long time resident of the St. James Hotel, hangs above the cast iron fireplace in the front entrance parlor.  Across the street in the area now known as St. James Place, the antebellum buildings housed Union troops during the War.  Businesses now occupy these buildings.
 
Steven Hippensteel, AL