Thomas Jefferson Hotel
19-story building on the western side of downtown Birmingham, Alabama
Thomas Jefferson Tower, originally the Thomas Jefferson Hotel and then the Cabana Hotel, is a 19-story building on the western side of downtown Birmingham, Alabama. It was completed in 1929 as the 350-room Thomas Jefferson Hotel and is at 1623 2nd Avenue North. It has a tower in its roof intended to be a zeppelin mooring mast.
History
The Thomas Jefferson Hotel was planned and developed by the Union Realty Company, headed by Henry Cobb. The company was organized in November 1925 in the office of architect David O. Whilldin, who prepared the design for the $1.5 million project. The Foster-Creighton Company of Nashville, Tennessee was selected as contractor and work began on the site in May 1926. Progress was halted in April 1927 when one of the projects financiers, the Adair Realty and Trust Company of Atlanta, Georgia failed. A new holding company was formed and work resumed in July 1928. Costs reached $2.5 million before it opened on September 7, 1929. The hotel's opening week featured nightly banquets and dances featuring an orchestra from New York.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Thomas Jefferson Hotel” as 19-story building on the western side of downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as 19-story building on the western side of downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7791269. Authority coordinates are 33.513, -86.811. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1623, 1925 and 1926.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Thomas Jefferson Hotel”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Thomas Jefferson Hotel primary sources, Thomas Jefferson Hotel archive and Thomas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Jefferson Hotel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.