Ensley Hotel

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The Ensley Hotel was a two-story wood framed hotel constructed on the corner of 19th Street and Avenue E in Ensley in 1887. Originally the guest rooms primarily accommodated potential investors in Colonel Enoch Ensley's real-estate venture. The lobby housed the town's post office as well as billiard tables and a lounge area.

One of the factors that exceeded the patience of Ensley's first investors was Enoch Ensley's insistence that the sale of individual lots not be made final until the hotel and other services were completed. Col. Ensley sold off his holdings in the town when he relocated to Sheffield in 1889, before the furnaces came on-line.

The property was auctioned off to James C. Warner in 1898. In the early 1910s he tore down the vacant building, then considered an eyesore, and built a row of commercial fronts. The site was later sold to Erskine Ramsay and Carr McCormack for their landmark Ramsay-McCormack building.

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