Muehlebach Hotel

The property, then the site of the First Baptist Church, was acquired in 1914 by the Muehlebach Estate Co., owned by George E. Muehlebach, whose father, George E. Muehlebach Sr., founded the Muehlebach Beer Company. In 1952, a 17-story western annex, called the Muehlebach Tower, and a parking lot, were added to the hotel. Allis sold the hotel in the 1960s. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States foreclosed on the hotel in the early 1970s. In 1974, they renovated the hotel, at a cost of $7 million, and contracted with Minneapolis-based Radisson Hotels to manage the hotel, as the Radisson Muehlebach Hotel. The hotel served as the headquarters for the 1976 Republican National Convention. It closed permanently in 1986. In 2024, the empty upper floors of the Muehlebach building were offered for sale. In 2025, Flint Development announced plans to remodel the upper floors as 152 apartments. The lower floors, containing the lobby and function rooms, will remain owned and used by the adjoining Marriott hotel. ==Barbershop Harmony Society==

The Barbershop Harmony Society (SPEBSQSA, Inc.) traces its beginnings to a chance meeting in 1938 in the Muehlebach's lobby between two businessmen from Tulsa, Oklahoma. The two found two other men and sang their way through a snowstorm that had marooned all four at the hotel. A few weeks later, they convened several like-minded singers at a meeting in Tulsa, and from that the 25,000 member international organization was founded. The two businessmen's original meeting is now commemorated on a plaque in the restored original lobby of the hotel. ==Famous guests==

During the 1928 Republican National Convention, held across the street at Convention Hall, Herbert Hoover frequented the hotel. Howard Hughes had the presidential suite during his 1945 stay. The Muehlebach was the White House headquarters for Harry S. Truman during his frequent visits to his home in nearby Independence, Missouri. Truman stayed in Independence but conducted business in the Presidential Suite in the hotel's penthouse. In 1959, the Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), founded by architect Wilfred Gregson in 1956 with the mission of "Architect Helping Architect", held its first national conference at the Hotel Muehlebach. Gregson reported to those assembled: "You are the ones who have made the first great step toward a unified profession of architects. You are a living report that will go to every part of these fifty United States". In fall 1974, President Gerald Ford stayed at the Muehlebach when he was in town as the keynote speaker for the National FFA Convention. He shook hands with many of the FFA band members that were standing in a rope line in the lobby. The band members were also staying at the hotel the same week. During the 1976 Republican National Convention both Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan made pitches for delegates at the Radisson Muehlebach. Immediately following the 1976 Republican Convention, Robert A. Heinlein was the Guest of Honor at the 34th World Science Fiction Convention held at the Radisson Muehlebach and the Hotel Phillips, directly across the street. He was booked into the Muehlebach's Harry S. Truman Presidential Suite for the 5-day convention held during the 1976 Labor Day weekend. Among the other celebrity guests that stayed at the Muehlebach were Babe Ruth, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix Experience and Elvis Presley. ==References==