Page 17 - Tattnall County

Mrs. E.J. Claxton bought the hotel and did extensive remodeling inside and installed new dining room fxtures and equipment. Harrison was operator of the Pal Theater just a few steps from the hotel. Mrs. Claxton operated the hotel and dining room. The dining room quickly became a popular eating place. In the late 1940s, the Glennville Lions Club held their weekly luncheon meetings in the dining room. Harrison and Mrs. Claxton not only operated the hotel and dining room but also purchased the hotel property. Edythe Phillips, who moved to Glennville from Metter in 1940 for a job as a teacher, met her future husband, F. E. “Pike” Phillips, at a dance in Glennville. Edythe lived at the Glennwanis Hotel herself for almost six weeks in 1946 while waiting for the couple’s home to be built. Edythe also remembers that when Governor Herman Talmadge visited Glennville to attend the last Tomato Festival in 1954, he stayed at the Glennwanis Hotel.

Another resident of that era, Christine Durrence (the mother of Paulette Weaver) recalls that her class was the frst one to hold graduation exercises at what is now the City Auditorium in 1940, and the class also had their prom at the Glennwanis Hotel. In February of 1949, however, L.C. and Pauline McGinnis purchased the hotel, which was listed as containing “30 bedrooms and a dining room.” In 1956, Mae Luke became the next owner, and her daughter, Charlotte King, Tattnall County High School English teacher, can recall those years. “I was a junior or senior in high school when Mama bought the hotel. Mama had operated restaurants and dining rooms before this, so she had experience, especially in that part of the hotel. The dining room served the breakfast and evening meals to regular boarders, and hotel guests would pay extra for the meals,” said Charlotte, adding the

“rooming house” had daily and weekly rates.

One of these regular boarders became Charlotte’s husband. Ken King, who was from Berrien County, moved to Glennville, and was staying in the hotel so as to operate the TV shop for Charlie Rowland. “My sister, Jane, who was two and a half years younger, and I helped Mama. I recall the Lions Club coming there for their meetings and a meal, and that was always part of my chores to help,” said Charlotte. “We had the two frst rooms on the right as our living quarters. I can remember we had these tiny closets, and I wonder now where all three of us females put our clothes,” said Charlotte. “We had a laundry service, National Linen Service, who replaced our sheets and towels. Cecil Sanders, late husband of Lois Sanders, was working for them at the time and is the one who picked up our laundry each week,” she said. “Most of the furniture there was from the former owners, but the front room as you enter was the lobby, and it had a sofa and chairs and a card table for those who wanted to play cards. There was a black

and white TV in the lobby but not in any of the rooms,” she said. A buildup at Ft. Stewart was in progress, too, and Charlotte recalls two military couples having rooms there while stationed at Ft. Stewart.

Charlotte graduated from Glennville High School in 1958 and attended college at Mercer for two years, living with an aunt in Macon. She transferred to Georgia Southern her last two years. She and Ken were married in June of 1960. These were busy years for Highway 301, and Mae Luke was often called by the 301 Hotels when they had an overfow of guests. After owning and operating the hotel for six years, Mae went to work for Olan Mills, who actually had an offce in the Glennwanis Hotel, and an optometrist also rented offce space.

“Mother had been running a restaurant on Highway 301 North where Brent Walker’s used car lot was (on the other side of Bumper to Bumper), called Mrs. Luke’s Dining Room. We lived in the back of the house, and the dining room for guests was in the front. She had also managed a restaurant at