| Existing comment:
The Willard Inter-Continental Hotel was originally opened in 1816. (This particular version of it was built in 1901 and then refurbished and reopened in 1986.) This was the hotel that Abraham Lincoln stayed in before he was inaugurated in 1861. Staying here after the first battle of Manassas, Julia Ward Howe reworked the words for a popular song called "John Brown's Body" and created "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Also during the Civil War, the growth in government contracts resulted in lots of businesspeople staying here, waiting in the lobbies to button-hole government officials. Ulysses Grant coined the term "lobbyists" to describe them. Martin Luther King Jr also stayed here the night before his "I Have A Dream" speech, making last-minute changes here. It is also said that the term "What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar" was coined here by a government official who tried to buy a cigar here and found them to be too expensive. |