The Elks Club
By Dennis Wolf
The Elk’s Club (Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks) building was at 69 Jefferson. I am not sure when it was built, but the colorized photo was taken in 1900. I blew up the 1906 B&W photo and tried to read the cornerstone, and I *think* I saw 1884. Notice the horse and buggy parked at the curb in the 1900 photo. There is an Elk’s head at the center of the building above the second floor windows, and the word “Elk’s” is etched on the lantern above the door. It was a nice looking building.
The building was two stories of brick and masonry construction, with a basement. This building was demolished in 1926 and replaced with a 12-story building called the Elks Club Building at a cost of $1.3 million ($23,191,808 in 2024 dollars).
The new, 12-story building was the Elks Club and Hotel. By 1937, the Memphis Elk’s Lodge #27 could no longer afford to maintain the building, and it was sold at auction for $200,000 ($4,368,612 in 2024 dollars). In 1939, the name was changed to the Hotel DeVoy, and in 1945 to the King Cotton Hotel. In addition to 150 rooms, the hotel had a swimming pool, six-lane bowling alley, billiard parlor, squash and handball courts, a gym, a ballroom, a library, a ladies writing room, and air conditioning (something we take for granted today).
The Hotel King Cotton closed in 1972, and the building sat vacant and slowly decayed. It was demolished on Sunday, April 29, 1984 in an implosion. A few days before the implosion, five people, including two bird authorities from the zoo, combed the roof looking for a hawk or falcon that was supposedly nesting on the hotel roof. No birds were found.
When the building imploded, most of the hotel fell straight down, as intended, but the chimney landed in Confederate Park, which it wasn’t supposed to do. The 21-story Raymond James Tower, formerly the Morgan Keegan Tower, the second tallest building in Memphis at 403 feet tall, sits at that location today. The four stone griffins that were on the top of the old building now sit in the lobby of the Raymond James building.
The sign leaning against the steps is for the Griswold Decorating Company, which was at 108 Poplar. They sold and hung wallpaper, were Kalsominers (they did whitewash (calcimine)), and were decorators. It is possible they were doing some work at the building and had their sign there as advertising.
If you look at the 1906 B&W photo, on the right side you will see a mule hitched to a wagon. Only part of the wagon is visible, but the wagon belonged to Matt Monaghan & Company, a wholesale produce and commission merchant whose business was directly across the street at 70 Jefferson.
The building next door to the Elk’s Club was the Hopkin’s House hotel and tavern. It was located at 67 Jefferson.
