Notable guests
The first group of three Japanese ambassadors to the United States stayed at the Willard with seventy-four other delegates in 1860, where they observed that their hotel room was more luxurious than the U.S. Secretary of State's house.[13] It was the first time an official Japanese delegation traveled to a foreign destination, and many tourists and journalists gathered to see the sword-carrying Japanese.[14]
In the 1860s, author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that "the Willard Hotel more justly could be called the center of Washington than either the Capitol or the White House or the State Department."[15]
From February 4 to February 27, 1861, the Peace Congress, featuring delegates from 21 of the 34 states, met at the Willard in a last-ditch attempt to avert the Civil War. A plaque from the Virginia Civil War Commission, located on the Pennsylvania Ave. side of the hotel, commemorates this courageous effort. Later that year, upon hearing a Union regiment singing "John Brown's Body" as they marched beneath her window, Julia Ward Howe wrote the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while staying at the hotel in November 1861.[8]
On February 23, 1861, amid several assassination threats, detective Allan Pinkerton smuggled Abraham Lincoln into the Willard; there Lincoln lived until his inauguration on March 4, holding meetings in the lobby and carrying on business from his room.[16]
On March 27, 1874, the Northern and Southern Orders of Chi Phi met at the Willard to unite as the Chi Phi fraternity.
Many United States presidents have frequented the Willard, and every president since Franklin Pierce has either slept in or attended an event at the hotel at least once; the hotel hence is also known as "the residence of presidents."[17] Ulysses S. Grant first stayed there as a lieutenant in 1852.[18] It was his habit to drink whiskey and smoke a cigar while relaxing in the lobby. Folklore (promoted by the hotel) holds that this is the origin of the term "lobbying," as Grant was often approached by those seeking favors. However, this is probably false, as Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary dates the verb "to lobby" to 1837. Grover Cleveland lived there at the beginning of his second term in 1893, because of concern for his infant daughter's health following a recent outbreak of scarlet fever in the White House.[19] Six sitting vice-presidents have lived in the Willard. Millard Fillmore and Thomas A. Hendricks, during his brief time in office, lived in the old Willard; and then four successive vice-presidents, James S. Sherman, Thomas R. Marshall, Calvin Coolidge and finally Charles Dawes all lived in the current building for at least part of their vice-presidency. Fillmore and Coolidge continued in the Willard, even after becoming president, to allow the first family time to move out of the White House.
The first recorded meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research was convened at the Willard on May 7, 1907.[20]
Plans for Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations took shape when he held meetings of the League to Enforce Peace in the hotel's lobby in 1916.
A fire broke out in April 1922 while Calvin Coolidge was staying in the building. Attempting to re-enter the building, he was asked to identify himself to the fire marshal, to which he responded, "I'm the Vice President." The fire marshal's response was "What are you vice president of?"[21]
Several hundred officers, many of them combat veterans of World War I, first gathered with the General of the Armies, John J. "Blackjack" Pershing, at the Willard Hotel on October 2, 1922, and formally established the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) as an organization.[22]
In 1935 the hotel was used as a place of confinement for William P. MacCracken Jr., Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, after he was convicted of contempt of Congress in the Air Mail scandal. According to The Washington Post, "Chesley Jurney, the Senate sargeant at arms, had no place to hold MacCracken who, after being sentenced, showed up at Jurney's house and stayed the night. The next day he was confined to a room at the Willard Hotel."[23]
During World War II the British government rented several of the Willard's floors for its supply organization. Jean Monnet had his office there. In 1997 a memorial plaque was erected near the hotel's entrance to commemorate this episode.[24]
Martin Luther King Jr., wrote his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in his hotel room at the Willard in 1963, in the days leading up to his August 28 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.[8]
Among the Willard's many other famous guests are P. T. Barnum, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, General Tom Thumb, Samuel Morse, the Duke of Windsor, Harry Houdini, Gypsy Rose Lee, Gloria Swanson, Emily Dickinson, Jenny Lind, Charles Dickens, Bert Bell, Joe Paterno, and Jim Sweeney.[25][26]
Steven Spielberg shot the finale of his film Minority Report at the hotel in the summer of 2001. He filmed with Tom Cruise and Max von Sydow in the Willard Room, Peacock Alley and the kitchen. A replica of the terraced roof of the office building was constructed on a soundstage for the final scene.[27]
On February 22, 2012, Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd gave a dramatic resignation speech in the hotel's Douglas Room.[28]
In the days leading up to the 2021 January 6 United States Capitol attack, a series of rooms and suites in the hotel functioned as an informal command center headed by Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani for a White House plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election.[29]
The 12th president of South Korea, President Moon Jae-in stayed in the hotel during his 2021 visit.[30]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stayed in the hotel during his 2023 visit.[31]
