Many Others Stayed At Davenport But Stories Of A Visit By Gandhi Are Unfounded

Remember last week’s list of celebrities at the Davenport Hotel?

Here are a few names to add, and one to subtract.

The evidence is overwhelming that Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi never set foot in the Davenport, even though he is prominently listed on the Davenport’s own list of famous guests.

The clincher: Gandhi never visited America at all. That information comes directly from Arun Gandhi, the Mahatma’s grandson, contacted at his Gandhi Institute for the Study of Non-Violence in Memphis, Tenn.

Gandhi’s supposed visit is a particularly persistent myth. A Davenport shoeshine man once was quoted as saying that Gandhi stopped to chat with him.

Could he have been referring to a different Gandhi? Indira Gandhi did spend the night in Spokane in 1962 (presumably at the Davenport). She later became the Indian prime minister. She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, but no relation to Mohandas Gandhi.

We can also add at least two other heads of state to the Davenport list: Ronald Reagan (1979) and George Bush (1984). Neither was president at the time, but they both spoke at the Davenport, according to Bob Isitt, social studies teacher at Shadle Park High School, who was there on each occasion.

Other names that we can confidently add to the Davenport guest list: George Jessel, Benny Goodman, Gene Autry, Joe Louis, the Mills Brothers, Cedric Hardwicke, Charles Boyer, Amelia Earhart, Robert Taylor, Tex Ritter, Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, John McIntire, Jeanette Nolan, Brian Donlevy and the Harlem Globetrotters.

And it appears that Sammy Davis Jr. also visited a fancy Spokane hotel, which may or may not have been the Davenport.

In Davis’ autobiography, “Why Me?” he writes about a visit to Spokane in 1945, when he was booked into a Spokane vaudeville theater for a 10-day run. He could find no vacancy at any of the “colored” rooming houses in Spokane. So Davis marched off to book a room at the (unidentified) “whitest hotel in town” complete with revolving door, elevators and uniformed bellboys. He was told the hotel was “entirely filled” and on the way out, he heard a bellboy say, “Nervy nigger wanted a room. Some crust. Go on, go back where you belong.”

Davis punched the bellboy, but in the ensuing fight it was Davis who ended up with a broken nose. He never did get a room; he and his father and uncle had to sleep in their dressing room for 10 days.

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