By Thomas F. Schwartz
My wife and I stayed at the historic Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida. She innocently asked, “Did Herbert Hoover stay here?” Not knowing the answer, I did a quick search with an online encyclopedia entry claiming that two presidents—Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover—stayed at the hotel. The entry, however, lacked a citation for the statement. Upon my return, I began to verify the claim in Hoover’s papers, assisted by the archivists. What was discovered was both disappointing but enlightening.
Former President Calvin Coolidge gave a NBC radio address at the New York Life Insurance annual dinner held at the hotel on January 9, 1930. Coolidge was a member of the New York Life Insurance board. Hoover was invited to stay at the Vinoy Hotel in February 1930 on his way home from a fishing trip but declined. In 1937, both Herbert Hoover and Al Smith, presidential candidates in 1928, served on the board of the New York Life Insurance company and were invited to attend the annual dinner held at the Vinoy. Neither attended. So, there is no evidence in Hoover’s papers and calendars that he ever stayed at the Vinoy.
Clement Kennedy, the managing director of the Vinoy, invited Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon to stay after an announced trip to Florida. Mellon, however, departed from the Hoover Cabinet shortly after the invitation was received and apparently never acted upon it. The only member of Hoover’s White House team to stay appears to be his Press Secretary, Theodore Joslin. The St. Petersburg Times announced on January 7, 1937 that “Theodore G. Joslin, Washington D.C., secretary to former President Herbert Hoover, is in St. Petersburg and with Mrs. Joslin will be a guest at the Vinoy Park hotel for the balance of the season.”