Historic Hotels & Inns in Alabama

Ways in

Themes in Alabama

Mobile Bay’s old hotels

Mobile’s first Battle House opened in 1852 and burned in 1905; its replacement opened in 1908, closed in 1974 and reopened in 2007 beside a new tower. In Church Street East, Malaga Inn joins twin townhouses of 1862, and Fort Condé Inn grew from the 1836 Hall-Ford House. Across the bay, Grand Hotel has been a resort since 1847, though no 1847 building survives, and The Fairhope Hotel dates from 1925. North of Mobile, Africatown was founded in 1866 by survivors of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to reach the United States; Africatown Heritage House tells that story.

Birmingham’s iron-era towers and civil rights history

Sloss Furnaces made pig iron in Birmingham from 1882, and its company used convict-leased labor in its mines. The city’s towers followed: the 1909 Empire Building on the Heaviest Corner is now the Elyton Hotel, the 1914 Ridgely Apartments became the Tutwiler Hotel, and the Redmont Hotel opened in 1925. The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, proclaimed in 2017, takes in Kelly Ingram Park, where marchers faced police dogs and fire hoses in May 1963, and 16th Street Baptist Church, where a Klan bomb killed four girls that September. The A.G. Gaston Motel, bombed on May 12, 1963, is part of the monument and takes no overnight guests.

Selma and Montgomery

The St. James Hotel, which the hotel and Alabama Tourism date to 1837, stands on the Alabama River in Selma. Benjamin Sterling Turner, born into slavery and sold at 20 to W. H. Gee, managed Gee’s hotel and livery while enslaved; the hotel identifies this as the St. James and says he later bought it. After emancipation Turner became Alabama’s first Black member of Congress, serving from 1871 to 1873. The building was in commercial and industrial use, not a hotel, when police attacked Black voting-rights marchers at the nearby Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. In Montgomery, the 1928 Graystone Hotel on Commerce Street is now the Hampton Inn & Suites Montgomery-Downtown, which Hilton places close to the Legacy Museum, the Rosa Parks Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

North Alabama and the CCC cabins at Monte Sano

Civilian Conservation Corps workers built 11 rustic cabins on Monte Sano, east of Huntsville, between 1935 and 1940, and the state park opened in 1938. Book Cabins 1–11 for the stone CCC cabins, each with a working fireplace, because Cabins 12–14 are later wood-frame units. In downtown Florence, the GunRunner Hotel fills a former Ford Sales and Service block, and The Stricklin Hotel takes the upper floors of the Stricklin Building on Court Street.

Road trip

Birmingham to Mobile, inn to inn

Birmingham

Start with the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument: Kelly Ingram Park, 16th Street Baptist Church and the Civil Rights Institute, which is closed Sunday and Monday. The Redmont Hotel is on the same avenue as the park; our Birmingham guide has the other five stays.

Selma

Stay at The St. James Hotel on the Alabama River, near the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where police attacked Black voting-rights marchers in 1965.

Montgomery

Stay at the Hampton Inn & Suites Montgomery-Downtown, in the 1928 Graystone Hotel on Commerce Street, close to the Legacy Museum and the Rosa Parks Museum by Hilton’s account.

Mobile

End at The Battle House or Malaga Inn, and book a timed ticket for Africatown Heritage House, which tells the story of the Clotilda. Our Mobile guide also covers the Eastern Shore.

Context

History and architecture

Alabama’s oldest stories predate the state. The French founded Mobile in 1702, and it was British from 1763 and Spanish from 1780 before turning American in 1813; Alabama became the 22nd state in 1819. In 1860 the Clotilda illegally brought 110 people from what is now Benin to Mobile, and in Selma Benjamin Sterling Turner managed a hotel and livery while enslaved, then became the state’s first Black member of Congress. Birmingham, founded in 1871, made iron, and the Sloss company used convict-leased labor in its mines. Its skyscrapers rose at the Heaviest Corner from 1902 to 1912, the Redmont opened in 1925, and from 1935 the Civilian Conservation Corps built the cabins on Monte Sano. Marchers faced police dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham in May 1963, and police attacked voting-rights marchers at Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. Several of these buildings have returned to use only recently: The Battle House reopened in 2007, The Kelly opened as a hotel in 2021, and The St. James Hotel reopened in October 2026.