On January 21, 1861, Jefferson Davis, traveling home to Mississippi after resigning from the United States Senate, stayed at the Crutchfield House. It was Chattanooga's first major railroad hotel, having opened in 1856. Located in the city's center across from the Union Depot, the hotel served travelers on both the Western and Atlantic and the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroads. It was a focus of Chattanooga's bustling economic and social activity. Davis delivered a speech there on the sectional crisis described by others as brief and moderate. As he left the room, William Crutchfield, brother of hotel owner Thomas Crutchfield and an "uncompromising Union man," made a heated reply in which he called Davis a traitor and denounced secession.
