There appears to have been three buildings between the Hotel Martin and the Young Building. On the east was the E.T. Saliba and Mack Bush building, then Jay's Cafe building (part of the J.R.G. Howell estate) and then a small brick building owned by Dan Baker located between Jay's and the Young Building.
from the October 31, 1956 DOTHAN EAGLE
Parcel No 3: One brick building and lot on south side of East Main Street, City of Dothan, Alabama, bounded as follows: North by East Main Street : East by property now or formerly owned by J R G Howell estate and known as Jay’s Cafe Building: South by E T Saliba Estate and West by what is known as the Young Building being 22 feet on East Main Street and 60 feet more or less deep..
From the November 11, 1985 DOTHAN EAGLE
Another brick hotel was built at the turn of the century (1907) by the Baker brothers. They leased it to a Mr Martin who ran it under the name of the Hotel Martin on E Main St.
An interesting sidelight to the Hotel Martin’s beginning is that when the building was started it wasn’t to be a hotel but a warehouse. It was after the building was completed that the Bakers decided Dothan had enough commerce to support the hotel. Both the Mullen and Martin hotels had their own barber shops where business was shuffled back and forth between barber shop and hotel. If a drummer stopped for a shave first and asked for a good hotel he was referred to the hotel. And it worked the other way around But a business shuffle wasn’t the only shuffle to be found at the hotel or the barber shop. Poker games flourished at both. The hotel sessions were all night or longer affairs while the barber shop game was of the interim variety — a game was always under way for customers awaiting their turn in the chair. And a fellow’s private bottle of whiskey and shaving mug was a standard part of the barber shop decor.
Dan Baker's (DMAT's Jeff Bannon) property at the time of his death in 1956.
from the October 31, 1956 DOTHAN EAGLE
Parcel No 13: That certain brick building and lot known as the Hotel Martin Building and located on the South side of East Main Street in the City of Dothan, Houston County Alabama bounded as follows: On the North by East Main Street ; on the East by the Central of Georgia Railroad right-of-way on the South by the Central of Georgia Railroad right-of-way on the North by East Main Street and on the West by property now known or formerly known as the E.T. Saliba and the Mack Bush property together with all furniture equipment and fixtures of every kind and character now located therein and used in connection with the operation of the Hotel Martin.
from page 292 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD:
Chapter Twenty-seven
Glass started tinkling somewhere in the room, and Buck held his breath for a moment trying to locate it. Without touching her and without a word being spoken, he knew that Lota was lying beside him, straining to hear it more clearly. He stared up into the thick hot darkness and listened while the tinkling grew louder and more regular. Then, suddenly, his ears found the kinship between the tinkle and the far-off rumbling that came through the window behind the bed.
"The eight-ten to Hartford," he said, too lazy for his voice to show triumph.
He felt Lota's breath on his arm as she spoke.
"What did you think it was, sleigh bells?"
He slapped the side of her thigh with the back of his hand and felt the bed shake as she laughed silently. She stirred, pretending to move farther away, but not increasing the distance between them.
"Keep your hands off me," she said, and yawned luxuriously, "you've already done enough damage."
"All I'm liable to do tonight, too."
"I don't know," she drawled, and started to sit up, "I'd better not take a chance."
"Wait a minute," Buck said quickly and held his arm out into the dark. She sighed and fell back limply.
They lay still again, listening to the now faster and louder tinkle of glass and the heavy trudge of the big drive wheels as the engine pulled closer from the northeast. The glow from the big headlight came slowly, seeming to grow from nothing into a pale dusk, so smoothly it was hardly noticeable. Then, with a rush, the train was close and the light was brighter still, reflected by the mirror in the walnut dresser across the room. Suddenly, the train was almost under the window and the light was gone and it was darker than before. In the room, there was left only the tiny tinkle of glass and the grind and clash of wheels and couplings that shook the hotel like a midget earthquake. But in Buck's mind was the picture he had waited for-the sight of Lota's body, long and slim and strong, stretched out full in the shadowy light that came so slowly and left with such a rush. The dim light had blurred the rounded outline and left only a memory of a sight that was hard to recapture, like a snatch of a song that comes and goes. He could sense, but not see, that her skin in the warm and hurried little twilight had a dusty glow that wasn't pink and wasn't olive, but had a tinge of both. He felt her stir slightly and knew she was going to speak.
"I know what you're thinking," she said, softly, "And I know when you made me lie back down."
"Why?"
"You knew that light was coming."
"Unh-hunh."
"How'd you know it would come, we've never been to bed this early before."
"There's a two-twenty train every morning."
Lota raised herself slowly and leaned over on one elbow. He couldn't see, but he knew that her eyes were near and dark and half closed.
"You've stayed awake, while I've been sleeping? Why? It's not just to see me."
"It's just been lately," Buck said. "I don't know why. Maybe because I knew you'd be leaving tonight. Maybe because-I don't know. I been crowded, seems like. Things coming all at once and in too much of a hurry." He rolled his head impatiently on the pillow. "Makes me feel like my score is being added up."
Dougie Bailey's fictional account of how the Bakers acquired the Hotel Martin's triangular lot.
from page 32 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD:
Buck Bannon (Joe "Buck" Baker, Jr.) stands in Amos Longshore's front yard (Captain George Y. Malone's yard located where the old Greyhound Station now stands on North Foster Street) and gazes down on the present day intersection of Main Street and St. Andrews.
He tightened his grip on the neck of the plain paper bag in his hand, and held it closer against his leg, scowling uselessly at the small clump of stores that had volunteered in the last year. "Half a mile from the railroad," he thought, "just to get closer to the spring and the distillery." He shook his head to clear it and started up the walk, swinging his arms and hitting the gravel good solid licks with his heels,"By God, business may leave where I am now, but it'll find me where it's going when it gets there."
from page 87 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD:
Buck Bannon sits in the Bannon kitchen (old Baker house's kitchen located on the north side of the block in Dixie bounded by East Newton on the south, North St. Andrews on the east, East Powell on the north and North Foster on the west) talking to his father, Joe Bannon (Joe Baker, Sr.) about buying up all the property around what would become the Harrison House hotel (Hotel Martin).
He (Buck Bannon) stopped and wiped his forehead, breathing deeply, and pushed his hair back.
"He'll cross Basin Street (East Main Street) within two blocks of the store I wanted to buy. He'll build a depot, and a freight yard, and that section of town'll grow up crazy as a plum thicket."
from page 190 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD: to be continued...
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