Alligators in the Lobby
One afternoon in 1910, the Richmond City police received a frantic phone call. “Come immediately—someone is walking an alligator down Franklin Street!” After rushing over, the police caught two teenaged boys leading lumbering alligators down the sidewalk on rope leashes. Police hauled the boys down to the station for a firm talking-to, and returned the alligators to their home: the Jefferson Hotel lobby.
From the day that it opened in 1895, anybody who was anybody visiting Richmond, Virginia, booked a
