Slaughter's Hotel
Proprietor Richard Slaughter in a hotel ad at its second location (529 N. 2nd Street), appearing in New Journal and Guide, March 9, 1935.
Known Name(s)
Slaughters
Address
514 N. 2nd St. Richmond, VA
Establishment Type(s)
Hotel
Physical Status
Demolished
Description
The 1952 Sanborn Map shows the building at 514 N. Second Street as a brick, two-story restaurant with a non-combustible (i.e.. slate or metal) roof and a wood cornice. The rear/western half of the southern elevation is one-story. This appears to be where a rear ell was extended to the property line. There is a very small, one-story frame addition behind this portion of the building. An alley runs along the south elevation. Across the alley is another restaurant and "moving pictures." A drug store is adjacent to the north of 514 N. Second Street.
Detailed History
(For brief context on the importance of this N. 2nd Street block to the history of Jackson Ward, a National Historic Landmark, see entry for Miller’s Hotel / Hotel Eggleston.)
African American proprietor Richard Slaughter first operated Slaughter’s Hotel at 514 N. 2nd Street in Jackson Ward. The hotel was located here by 1924, when it appears as an “eating hotel” in the Richmond Directory of that year. The 1929 edition lists Slaughter’s Café at this address. Richard Slaughter also lived here, according to the 1930 U.S. Census, and paid $20 per month in rent (he was described as a restaurant proprietor). Gertrude Atwell Taylor, a Black woman who moved to Richmond from Red Oak, Virginia, in 1926, became the hotel’s business manager.
Even though No. 514 is given as the address for Slaughter’s Hotel in the Green Book from 1938 to 1948, it appears that this was a mistake, as Slaughter moved his hotel across the street to a former bank building at 529 N. 2nd Street in 1931. See that entry for more information on Richard Slaughter and Gertrude Atwell Taylor (married name: Gertrude Duncan).
Researched and written by Amanda Davis, architectural historian
