Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
298
The US Grant was full of modern amenities. Most of the rooms had a private bath. Italian
marble was used for the Grand Staircase. A garden terrace above the lobby was eventually turned
into the hotel's Grand Ballroom. Two saltwater swimming tanks were built on the lower level, with
a direct waterline running to the bay. The hotel also offered shower baths, ladies' hair drying rooms
and lockers, disrobing apartments, and billiards for the gentlemen. The Grant also included a lavish
marble and onyx “Ladies Foyer,” allowing these guests private access to the hotel.
Following the death of Fannie, Ulysses Grant Jr. secretly remarried a young San Diego wid-
owed socialite named America Workman Will. In 1913, they moved into a 6th-floor suite at the
hotel until 1919.
In 1915, the Pan-Pacific Exposition, designed to commemorate the Panama Canal, came to San
Diego. While the exposition was built on barren land east of downtown, which later would become
Balboa Park, the dignitaries stayed at the US Grant. Today, Balboa Park is host to the largest col-
lection of museums in a single urban setting in the United States.
Charles Lindberg stayed at the Grant in April 1927 while his
Spirit of St. Louis
airplane was
being built at the Ryan Aeronautical Company in San Diego. Lindberg made his historical flight
from New York to Paris on May 21, 1927. Ulysses S. Grant Jr. passed away in 1929 while still in
residence at the hotel. His widow, America Workman Will Grant remained in the hotel until her
death in 1942.
The US Grant has passed through several owners over the decades, while several presidents
passed through the Grant as guests. Woodrow Wilson came to visit in 1919. Franklin D. Roosevelt
opened the California Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park on October 2, 1935, and later
addressed the national media from the 11th-floor radio station atop the US Grant. First Lady Ma-
mie Eisenhower visited in 1960. Jimmy Carter attended his Naval Academy Class of 1947 reunion
at the US Grant in the fall of 2000.
On December 3, 2003, the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Indians purchased the hotel for $45
million: The land had come full circle with ownership returning to its original ancestors. Even
though the hotel has been listed on the National Registry of Historic Places since 1979, a major
