[9] Jefferson Davis stayed at the Crutchfield House on January 21, 1861, while traveling home to Mississippi after resigning from the United States Senate.

Davis delivered a speech in favor of secession in the hotel's dining room,[10] causing future congressman William Crutchfield (Thomas Crutchfield, Jr.'s brother) to deliver a fiery speech of his own, denouncing Davis as a "renegade and a traitor," and saying that Tennessee would not be "hood winked, bamboozled and dragged into your Southern, codfish, aristocratic, tory blooded, South Carolina mobocracy.

"[11] A duel nearly resulted between the men and the argument at the hotel was widely reported as tensions grew on the eve of the Civil War.

That winter, Confederate General Samuel Jones, commander of the Department of East Tennessee, converted the hotel to a military hospital.

Civil War surgeon John T. Read[14] had previously owned a hotel with his wife Caroline in their hometown of McMinnville, Tennessee, which had similarly burned down.

They moved to Chattanooga in 1871 and purchased a three-story office building that had been built on the site of the Crutchfield House.

In 1962, Noe built a six-story motel wing with an underground garage and an outdoor pool in the rear of the hotel, to appeal to travelers on the newly constructed Interstate Highway System.

[37] The hotel was renovated at a cost of $27 million, which included the movement of the main entrance from Broad Street to its original location on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, in front of the hotel, the addition of multiple dining outlets and the renovation of all guest rooms.

Among them are presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt,[40] William McKinley, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, as well as Edwin Booth, Gene Autry, Elvis Presley,[41] Oprah Winfrey, Gary Cooper, Winston Churchill, Bing Crosby, Walt Disney, Bob Hope, and Al Capone.

[42] Capone stayed in the Read House a short time during his federal trial in the early 20th century.

Some legends have it that she was found soaking in the tub with her head almost completely decapitated- more than likely done by a jealous lover or husband.