Arkansas Online

The Gleason’s thespian alligator

CELIA STOREY cstorey@adgnewsroom.com

One century ago, guests of the Gleason Hotel in Little Rock were on the lookout for a baby alligator.

Possibly it wasn’t a baby. It was 6 inches or 14 feet long, or some length in between.

The gator’s name was Toto; it was a theatrical alligator, and it was last seen wearing a pink ribbon around its neck, with a bell.

According to the Jan. 26, 1923, Arkansas Gazette, “Toto recently pertained to one of the charming ballerinos of the Greenwich Village Follies — to be exact, the little blonde cutey third from the left end of the pony row — which showed here some 10 days ago.”

Toto and his or her mistress had been strolling in the vicinity of their hotel apartment on the morning the show opened when all of a sudden, Toto vanished down a hole in the bathroom floor. Describing Toto between sobs, the blonde dancer asserted that he or she was “a cunning little critter about six inches long, slenderly built.”

The Gazette used the term “his or her mistress,” which seems to contradict its use of the Italian “ballerino,” a male dancer. But so do words like “cutey” and “blonde.” I believe the Gazette was trying too hard to be clever, and its excessive effort continued throughout the report. In a (to modern ears not funny) flourish of fanciness, the reporter faked up an awkward dialect while quoting a Black chambermaid who said she’d seen the gator.

After suggesting the maid had been drinking illegal beverages on Ninth Street, the reporter conveyed that she assessed Toto as 14 feet “f’um tip to tip” with red eyes and fiery breath.

“Somewhere between these two statements the truth lies,” the Gazette said. “It would seem apparent that no vast amount of alligator could ooze down a hole formerly occupied by a water pipe, but then you never can tell. Alligators are tricky things.”

The hotel manager, John R. Frazier, had “gently but firmly, emphatically and several times pos-i-tive-lee refused to rip up the whole second floor of his hotel in an effort to find Toto, and that is why the Greenwich Village Follies, wherever it may be, is entirely non-Toto. And that is why the Gleason hotel has with it an invisible guest.”

The report ended with reassurance to imagined intoxicated guests that if they saw an alligator wearing a pink ribbon at Gleason’s it was probably real.

GLEASON’S HOTEL

Alligators were not the animal most associated with Gleason’s Hotel. The establishment founded by Col. L.D. Gleason was known for its pet bear.

Reported to be a popular, famous fellow, Lawrence Denis “L.D.” Gleason (1837-1909) was born in Ireland but grew up in Ohio, where he met and married Mary McCabe. After a few years in Tennessee, they moved to Little Rock in 1871.

According to his obituary in the Dec. 25, 1909, Gazette, he operated the Metropolitan Hotel near the corner of Main and Markham streets in 1876 and later ran the Capital Hotel’s cafe. In 1878 he owned a Gleason Hotel and cafe on the second story of the Union Depot. Guests at the railroad Gleason’s could stay under the American plan (meals included in the cost) or the European plan (meals extra).

In 1891, he opened a cafe at Markham and Louisiana streets across from the Capital Hotel; later he operated the Merchants Hotel at Markham and Louisiana streets.

In 1897 the Gleasons acquired the hotel next door to the Merchants — J.T.W. Tillar’s Hotel Richelieu at Second and Center streets. They renamed it Gleason’s Hotel. Although they updated its interior from cellar to roof, they didn’t change the facade; see a photo in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas here: arkansasonline.com/0130pic.

And here’s a map of the area from 1919: arkansasonline. com/0130map/.

The 120-room, four-story Richelieu had been known as a classy house that did not need to advertise. Gleason advertised. In frequent ads in the Gazette and Arkansas Democrat, he boasted about new screened windows, electric

buzzes (fans), electric elevators and iced water; and the fine dining on the American plan, with rooms $2 to $3 a day.

Gleason’s competed with the Capital Hotel, and both were considered the city’s finest and largest.

The couple put Mary’s name on the deed, and so when she died in 1908, ownership passed to her heirs. L.D. died the next year, of heart failure, a few weeks after a misunderstanding with the city involving a sewer system catch basin. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery (see arkansasonline.com/0130LD), the cemetery of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock.

For the ensuing three decades, Gleason Hotel belonged to various heirs who lived out of state and leased the hotel to managers. In 1923, Frazier was the manager of the Gleason as well as the Merchants Hotel. Replying to a complaint from a Russellville traveler that Little Rock hotels gouged their customers, Frazier wrote to the editor of the Democrat stating that his cafes served food at pre-war prices and at his hotels, comfortable rooms without a bath were available for one person at $1 or $1.50 per day; for two people at $2 and $2.50 a day; and for three at $3.50 and $4.

Also, “our washrooms and lavatories are absolutely free to the public, while in other cities public wash rooms and lavatories cost the users from five to ten cents for the same service.”

Before Haskell L. Dickinson acquired the hotel in 1943, it was loaded with lawsuits. Dickinson told the Gazette that he spent about $130,000 on the hotel while he owned it, including a $50,000 renovation. A fire in 1945 caused $35,000 in damages and killed a guest, Tommy Hunt, a jockey.

Dickinson sold the hotel to other developers in 1958 and it was demolished as unsafe in 1959. It remained a parking lot until construction in the 1980s of the 25-story structure that is today’s Stephens Building.

During an auction of artifacts in July 1959, Dickinson told the Gazette that Gleason kept a pet bear in an 8-by-8foot iron cage at the rear of the hotel. The cage was still there when Dickinson bought the place.

AND TOTO TOO

Had hotel manager Frazier captured Toto after the revue left town in 1923, how might he have returned the alligator to its mistress?

The U.S. Postal Service could have done the job, if the dancer was correct about her pet’s size. In regulations announced in fall 1922, the service stated that it would deliver a live alligator, so long as it was no more than 20 inches from snout to tip of tail.

By the way, you could not send a live rooster by mail in 1923; but the Post Office would deliver newborn chicks — to destinations within 72 hours of the point of shipment. The chicks could be insured against loss but not against death.

What did baby chicks have in common with alligators that roosters did not? Newborn chicks don’t automatically die if you don’t feed or water them for a day or two or three.

Alligators can survive one or two or three years without food. But did Toto last long dragging his pink ribbon through the walls?

It could be a children’s movie. Imagine the wee alligator scuttling out a door or window, passing the bear and running onto Markham Street. Toto dodges pedestrians, horses, bicycles, cats and Model T’s before lumping over streetcar tracks and then wagging itself beside the Old State House and down to the railroad tracks beyond, and then down, down, down an embankment to the Arkansas River. Whee!

This was a thespian alligator. It should make a grand exit.

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