The Ralston Hotel Revisited

Buckle your seat belt and grab a drink because although I have cut this article down twice, it is still a long post for LinkedIn and others would say that it is not really a business story as much as a history/personal remembrance.

However, for those who take time to read it, I hope you enjoy the history and get a kick out some of my fondest memories of Columbus, where I lived from 1953, at 6 months of age to 1978 at 26 years of age, when I moved back to the city of my birth.

This morning I drove to Columbus, Georgia for the ribbon cutting for the newly renovated Ralston Towers. This is formerly The Ralston Hotel where I have many fond memories.

Since dad and his partners sold the hotel in 1970, it has been an old folks home and/or government housing.

It had gotten to such a sad state of disrepair that one of the guests died in his room and the temperature was over 110 degrees because the air conditioning did not work.

In 2019 or so, HUD shut down the Ralston and moved all of the residents out.

It was a beautiful old building that I assumed one day would be torn down. Today, because of Columbus Mayor, Skip Henderson , the city council, state legislators, United States congressmen as well as Gregory Jones and Infinity Capital Partners, what was a sad, deplorable facility is once again revived and will be serving folks for many years to come.

It was an honor to be invited by Greg to attend today's ribbon cutting ceremony. My sister, Vicki White, joined me for the occasion.

Our dad and a few partners bought the Ralston Hotel in 1962 and renovated it. It was the largest hotel in Columbus and the place where every major event in Columbus was held from the civic club weekly meetings to wedding receptions to the convention business that came to Columbus.

I must have 100 stories about things that happened at the hotel from sunbathing on the roof with many of the Columbus Yankees Double A baseball players who lived in the hotel during the season to singing Moon River almost every Sunday after church during lunch in the formal Dining Room where a pianist played for the church crowd who filled the dining room each week. I won't go into the "Mixed Drink Referendum" or the scantily clad "Go Go Dancers" in the Chart Room that our mom was not too happy about at all.

The biggest story from the Ralston Hotel experience I shared in all three of the "Heart of Networking" books was how our dad sparked and led the integration of the Ralston.

Dad did the unthinkable to many folks in Columbus when he began allowing both the white, black and Hispanic ball players from the other teams in the Southern League to stay in The Ralston.

In every other city, white ball players were dropped off at one hotel and the ball players of color were dropped off at the other, much less desirable hotel.

Dad believed that a team is a team and that all should be treated equally, so when the Columbus Yankees traveled to Macon, Savannah, Charlotte, Lynchburg or any of the other Southern League cities, the Columbus team stayed together.

This made dad a hero to the ball players of color but not so much with the white ball players or many folks in the city of Columbus. There were death threats, late night threatening phone calls and cars riding back and forth in the front of our house late at night.

There were often police cars parked in front or close to our house when the police received tips about potential violence.

It was an interesting time but what I learned from my dad changed my life and created a foundation not built on the Confederate Battle Flag or singing "Dixie".

My earliest work experience revolved around the Ralston Hotel as well. I began working at the Ralston Shell gasoline station in 1967 during the summer of my freshman year in high school. By the time I was a senior, I was managing the station, which meant I was downtown at 6:00am every morning to open the station and would leave by 7:15am to attend Hardaway High School .

I would skip my last class, which was study hall, to come back to the station to work until we closed at 7:00pm. I then had to account for our sales, credit card receipts and drop the money and my report at the hotel. I often got home or went on a date after leaving the station, which did not leave a great deal of time for homework and my grades sadly reflected that.

My first 3 or 4 beers were consumed at 16 years of age in the Governor's Suite at The Ralston during an Interact Club convention. Interact is the high school version of the Rotary Club .

It was a Friday night and within a few hours, I passed out. However, not for long because I was soon up and I had the really fun experience of throwing up for most of the night and had to open the gasoline station at 7:00am on Saturday morning. I was sick as a dog all day and decided that I had enough beer to last me for the rest of my life. I have not had a single beer since that fateful night in the Spring of 1968.

My 17th birthday party was at the Ralston and our entertainment was the legend from Phenix City, Alabama, Ralph Soul Jackson. I had not seen Ralph for 40+ years until I saw him at JoJo Benson's funeral in Columbus in 2014.

JoJo was another entertainer from Columbus who had a monster hit with his partner Peggy Scott titled "Lover's Holiday". I washed JoJo's car almost every Saturday morning and later, he invited me to visit his club to see Archie Bell and the Drells. We were all underage and we were always the only white folks in the club whenever we visited. We also saw former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms dad, Major Lance, Joe Tex and many other great performers in the club.

I graduated from Hardaway High School in 1970 and our Graduation "After Party" was held in the Governor's Suite where me and 4 or 5 other fellows and our dates had a wonderful evening filled with "Canadian Mist" because I did not have the money nor had I acquired the taste for "Crown Royal" quite yet in life.

After high school, I went to basic training for the Georgia National Guard in Fort Leonardwood, Missouri in June of 1970.

My plan was to do my 6 month basic training and AIT before returning to Columbus in December of that year.

I was going to enroll in Columbus College, now Columbus State University for the Winter semester beginning in January of 1971.

I was also planning to move into the Ralston Hotel, which I had already discussed with dad and he had not said no so I figured I had it made.

I also planned to go back to work part time the Ralston Shell station and every evening after we closed, I planned to be across the street at the "Chickasaw Club" and "Down The Hatch" which were the two hottest night clubs in Columbus at that time. After the evening was over, I could walk back to the hotel to crash and start over fresh the next day.

Because I have always been a "news junkie", I had a subscription to the Columbus Ledger, Enquirer, the local newspaper and it was delivered every few days to Fort Leonardwood.

In September or October, I was sitting on my bunk reading the paper and the headline was devastating.

"Dick Steele and partners sell the Ralston Hotel".

I went to a payphone to call dad collect to ask him what in hell did that mean and why in the world would he do that to his oldest son, who had concrete very nefarious plans for the Ralston.

Sadly for me, the deal was done and I contemplated quitting the National Guard to join the regular Army and head to Vietnam because my future plans for a fun filled life had been destroyed.

Needless to say, I did return to Columbus in December and enrolled in Columbus College, got an apartment at Club Hill with a few friends and we did find a way to survive.

It was so great to see the Ralston refurbished and ready to once again share hospitality to those needing an affordable place to live.

My dad would be very proud of Greg Jones and the team from Infinity Capital Partners LLC for what they have accomplished. https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/.../article278019893.html