Subscribe to continue reading
Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.
Dale Hipson and his Best Chums during World War II
Tag Archives: Pelican Hotel
Russell Holloway
To know the King sisters who grew up in the Pelican Hotel is to know about Russell Holloway.
Recently, I talked to Nancy Crawford, oldest of Bill and Nina King’s five daughters who told me “Russell raised us.”
I asked how she felt about Russell Holloway living in East Stuart during the years of segregation. Nancy said that was “just the way it was.”
A picture of Russell Holloway surfaced among images collected by Alice and Greg Luckhardt. It showed Russell with Fabian Forte and his wife Katie Regan. It was taken in 1969 during the filming of the movie about the “Notorious Ashley Gang.” Scenes were taken in the Pelican Hotel and some of the cast and crew of the movie stayed there.
When I reread a 1987 newspaper article about Russell Holloway by Sallie Hughes of the Miami Herald, his life story amazed me. The article was published when Russell was 67, after his Pelican Hotel days. Hughes photographed Russell cooking chicken in an East Stuart convenience store but at that time of his life he was also preparing huge dinners for the Macedonia Baptist Church in Gifford where he was pastor.
From the Hughes article we learn that Russell was born in Albany, Georgia and moved to Stuart with two of his sisters in 1939. His brother-in-law, George Mitchell, head chef at the Pelican Hotel, taught him to cook and hired him to work at the hotel. Before Russell perfected his cooking crafts he was drafted into the U.S. Army. In Massachusetts, he was preparing to go overseas when he met Gen. George Patton in a chow line. Patton, who knew a good deal about the quality of camp fare asked, “Who’s the cook?” Russell replied, “I’m the cook.”
Sgt. Russell Halloway went with Patton to victories in Morocco and Tunisia, through the siege of Sicily and into Nazi Germany.
When Sallie Hughes asked if he fought? Russell said, “Everybody fought. I have the scars to prove it.” Of course, he also cooked. Provisions were good. A Patton favorite was lamb stew that Patton insisted all the men have when he did.
The fighting cook returned to Stuart and became the Pelican’s top chef.
I know my friend Kay King Norris still uses some of Russell Holloway’s “cooking tricks.”
The King Era of the Pelican Hotel
Boom times did not last. Drew W. King Sr. came to the rescue of the Pelican Hotel in 1928. I was delighted to find the exact date on newspapers.com.
I knew that King Sr. owned and operated the King Hotel in Tullahoma, Tennessee and wondered if he came to Stuart because of a connection with affluent families from the Nashville area who had been guests in the Pelican Hotel. Members of Maxwell House Coffee Cheek family and H. G. Hill family, with 500 grocery stores in Tennessee, were big Pelican Hotel boosters. Newman Cheek built a house adjacent to the hotel that still stands.
After managing the Pelican Hotel for a decade Drew King, Sr. purchased it in 1939 and, with the help of his son Bill, continued to manage it. However, Drew Sr. died in December 1944 at the young age of 61. Two of his three sons were in the US Army. Drew, Jr. was serving in the invasion forces in the Philippines. Grover arrived for the funeral from Camp Beale, California. His daughter, Libba, was married to George Parks Jr. and another daughter, Lillie, was married to Bernard Coker.
Bill and Nina King’s five daughters; Nancy, Kay, Lillie May, Elsie Ann and finally, Quintina, grew up in Stuart and were, and continue to be, very popular. (The Kings’ use of the prefix quin meaning “five” or “fivefold” always makes me smile.)
Running the Pelican Hotel was a family affair. When Sue Fletcher, the girls’ cousin came to visit and help out, she was soon married to the town’s young second generation dentist , Dr. H. H. “Dale” Hipson .
There are so many angles to the Kings’ era at the Pelican Hotel, it will take several blogs to cover them.
I reread the article “Looking down from the Third Floor,” by Christina Martinez, written when she was a South Fork High School Student in 1991. The article about the King girls living in the Pelican Hotel, is in Florida Cracker Sampler produced by South Fork High School teachers Paul Catano and Ron Ashley with a grant from the Florida Endowment for the Humanities. (Now Florida Humanities.)
The Florida Cracker Sampler has been scanned in Martin Digital History and is available to all.
https://www.martindigitalhistory.org/items/show/3468
I think this link will take you right to the PDF of the Florida Cracker Sampler. You can leaf through the whole book. The article about the King sisters is on pages 70-72. The students who wrote the articles and did the interviews are more than “grown up” now.
The Ironic Legacy of the Pelican Hotel
To see all blogs press sandyhistorylady.com
The former Pelican Hotel stands today as the firm law firm of Gary, Williams, Parenti, Watson & Gary. Its history can be told from many angles, some of them charming, but those will be covered subsequently. The era of the hotel’s management by the King family is a heartwarming one.
I started to write this blog about Governor John Martin’s involvement in hotel’s coming into existence. The birth of Martin County is filled with what is called “conflicts of interests” today.
Governor Martin was on the board of the Griner Company that managed a chain of hotels. An agreement was signed on January 21, 1926 between the Pelican Hotel Co., with John E. Taylor as President and Gerald J. O’Reilly as Secretary and Charles B. Griner as President of the Griner Hotels, Inc. committing Griner Hotels, Inc. to operate the Pelican Hotel.
The Pelican Hotel was financed by W. I. Shuman’s Southland Bond and Mortgage Company. John E. Taylor was the mayor of Stuart. Gerald J. O’ Reilly was the architect of the Pelican Hotel as well as other buildings financed by W. I. Shuman. Taylor, O’Reilly and Shuman were all members of the County Division Committee.
The Pelican Hotel was opened just in time for the huge Martin County Birthday Parade. Governor and Mrs. Martin were the first guests to arrive. The Griner organization put on an elaborate reception, banquet, and dance at the Pelican Hotel on January 29, 1926.
Previous blogs showed the cars, floats, bands and children passing by the reviewing stand at the Pelican Hotel.
I was shocked when I found the following article that was published in The Stuart News on March 26, 1926.
I am afraid my admiration for our county’s founders took a dive.
The twists of fate amaze me.
After the Pelican Hotel was no longer a hotel he was converted to an office building. It was acquired by Willie E. Gary in 1986, remodeled and furnished with elaborate custom-made mahogany furniture.
Willie E. Gary is an American lawyer. Gary and his wife Gloria established Martin County’s first Black law firm at the age of 27, presently known as, Gary, Williams, Parenti, Watson, Gary & Gillespie, P.L.L.C. Gary was portrayed by actor Jamie Foxx in the 2023 film The Burial. Wikipedia
Glorious Celebration for Martin County
This is a link to all of my blogs:https://sandyhistorylady.com
The huge “Birthday Celebration” for Martin County was held on January 28 and 29, 1926. As mentioned previously, it was basically orchestrated Harry Lyons and Major W. I. Shuman.
After their arrival in Stuart, Gov. and Mrs. Martin checked into the newly built Pelican Hotel. They were the hotel’s first guests. They rested before settling on a parade viewing stand at eleven o’clock
The Martins must have been exhausted after watching a two hour long parade with over 700 decorated automobiles, numerous bands and 500 school children.
Isabelle Lyons was the daughter of parade organizer Harry Lyons and the sister of beloved Stuart News editor Ernie Lyons. Virginia Dyer, was the daughter of Stuart pioneers Flora and Harry Dyer and the granddaughter Russell and Margaret Frazier for whom Frazier Creek is named.
One of the most significant parade photographs shows the Lyric Theatre under construction.
