A member of the family that ran the Tookes Hotel in Frenchtown is still fighting to restore the historic property.
At Tallahassee's Downtown Market on Saturday, Ron McCoy was meeting other people who knew and loved his grandmother, hotel founder and the first certified teacher in Leon County, Dorothy Nash Tookes.
McCoy was selling t-shirts and other memorabilia from his booth.
“We’ve got some nice signature Tookes Hotel t-shirts,” he smiled. “They’ve got my grandmother’s famous quote on the back, ‘Let the work I’ve done speak,’ and you can win one or make a donation and have one.
All part of a campaign to raise one and a quarter million dollars to turn the old hotel on West Virginia Street into a museum.
“We’re making progress,” McCoy noted. “Every day we make a little progress on that, but we’ve still got a long way to go. That’s why we’re here and every dollar will help.”
McCoy plans another fundraiser in early November at the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel.
From its opening in 1948 until it closed in the early 70s, the Tookes Hotel was one of the only commercial lodgings in Tallahassee for African- Americans.