"Here is an extremely rare 1926 bottom marked 3 ¾” tall by 5” wide (from the tip of the spout across to the opposite side of the handle) 8 oz. silver plate syrup pitcher with attached underplate made for the King Cotton Hotel that was located in Greensboro, North Carolina. Anything from this hotel is considered very rare, but this is an actual silver dining ware item from the hotel’s 1926 opening and is quite the rare offering. If you collect hotel silver or vintage Greensboro artifacts, you might want to consider this for your collection.
Historically, The King Cotton Hotel was opened in 1926 downtown Greensboro at South Davie and Market streets. The hotel was owned by the Griffin & Bland Hotel Company, with E.H. Spence as the hotel’s manager. The impressive 13-story 250 room hotel advertised as being “typical of all that is New and Modern in a Thriving City” – “Excellent Dining Room and Coffee Shop”.
When built, the hotel was the newest and most modern hotel, which rivaled in luxury and service to the larger 350 room O. Henry Hotel, as well as the smaller Clegg, Huffine, and Sedgefield Inn hotels. By 1928, the hotel also had opened its locally famous “Florentine Room”, where entertaining, reception, and social events were held. By 1945, the hotel was operating the Surf Room.
In the same era of 1926, the Hotel became one of the more popular places for conventions to be held in the Greensboro area, which had a population then of about 19,500 persons. The city also had a great amount of Southern Railroad operations – shops – foundries, machine shops, furniture stores, ice production, tobacco, canning factories, in addition to a considerable amount of cotton trade. Hence from the impact that cotton had on the community, the hotel was named in response to the term “King Cotton.”
During the era that this syrup pitcher was made and used, persons arriving in Greensboro to stay at the King Cotton would have primarily either the Southern Railway. The hotel was also located in just a few blocks of the large stately Southern Depot that was built a year later in 1927.
The King Cotton continued to be one of the Greensboro’s most important hotels throughout the 1950’s. However by the 1960’s, the hotel had fallen out of favor, as did so many other once grand intercity hotels, and was eventually closed. It was subsequently imploded in 1971 to make way for News & Record Building. It should also be noted that Greensboro also lost another one of its grand hotels in 1979, when the O’Henry was also demolished to make way for a parking garage.
Again, this syrup pitcher was part of the original order of silver plate for the hotel’s opening in 1926. This pitcher would have been used in the dining rooms, coffee shop, lounge, or for room service to serve syrup for pancakes, waffles, to hold chocolate, etc. from. It would have been used in connection with the King Cotton Hotel china and glassware for table service. It is the heavyweight type Steamship, Restaurant, and Railroad silverplate.
It was made by the International Silver Co., has the date of 1926, the catalog number of 05005, is marked 8 oz., and reads KING COTTON HOTEL – 1926” on the bottom. There is wear to the backstamp hallmark, but still can be read very well. The exterior has the usual light usage scratches, some minor indentations, some silver plate wear, and some pitting / light corrosion marks to the top well of the under plate. The handle is somewhat loose at the hinge, but still secured and functions well. The inside has some light silver plate wear to the bottom, but not bad. In my opinion, it would be well suited for actual functionality. etc. The syrup pitcher looks great with the finial – thumb latch on the top of the lid and its refined smooth lines that give it quite the art-deco appearance."
(The King Cotten Hotel was the birth place of the Greensboro Jaycees.)
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