After Washington’s Great Fire of 11 June 1895, which devastated much of the business center of the city, brothers John and Thomas Fitzpatrick returned to their hometown from Lancaster, South Carolina, where they had operated a thriving dry goods business. They soon began building this hotel on property their family had owned since 1843. Golucke & Stewart were the architects.(J. W. Golucke was the most prolific architect of governments in Georgia history). The brothers used the lobby to display dry goods and groceries in promotion of their more lucrative enterprise . In 1899, the business was grossing $100,000 annually. The first telephone system in Washington was installed here and preceded the Fitzpatrick’s ownership of the county’s first telephone company. John died in 1907 and Thomas in 1911. After the their deaths, the hotel would later be known as the Columbus Inn and the Washington Hotel and was finally closed in 1952. After many years of neglect, it was restored and reopened by Jim Carter and Mike & Christy Todd.
National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing North Georgia Photographs by Brian Brown 