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What do Franklin D. Roosevelt, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth and Billie Holiday have in common? Not much, except that hotel rooms they once occupied in various American cities are still available for booking.

FDR: The Mayflower in Washington DC: President-elect Roosevelt stayed at the Mayflower before moving into the White House in January 1933. If you’re traveling to Washington and want to stay in Room 776, where FDR worked on his inaugural speech, the price is about $300. marriott.com/hotels/travel/wassh-renaissance-mayflower-hotel

Elvis Presley: He parked his blue suede shoes at the Best Western Trade Winds Courtyard Inn in Clinton OK. The country boy didn’t start out with the wealth of the Roosevelts, and in the days before Graceland, he stayed in more modest hotels. During the early 1960s, while performing in Nevada, he drove the nearly 1,600 miles from Memphis to Las Vegas and back. Sometimes he spent the night at the Best Western in Clinton, about halfway through his journeys. It’s at the junction of Highway I-40 and old Route 66.

According to local legend, the young Elvis occupied the motel’s Room 215 four times. The price to stay where the King of Rock’n’Roll slept is about double the rate for other rooms there. bestwestern.com

Marilyn Monroe: She stayed at Ballantines Original Hotel in Palm Springs CA. A boutique inn, it still looks as it did in the late 1940s when starlet Norma Jean Baker slept there. It was just before she became Marilyn Monroe and went on to stardom.

Her room is now a sort of shrine, the Pretty in Pink Suite, and is decorated with photos and other memorabilia from her life. While other rooms go for about $165, travelers must pay double to experience a night where Marilyn rested many years ago. ballantinesoriginalhotel.com

Babe Ruth: The home run hero stayed at Cranmore Mountain Lodge in North Conway NH. He golfed there in the summer of 1939, where he met the owner of the Lodge, who became his son-in-law the next year.

The  then-retired Yankee star stayed in Room 2 several times. It’s offered to guests, complete with original furniture and many photos of the Babe on the walls. Now a bed and breakfast, room rates there start at $84. cml1.com

Billie Holiday: The famed Lady Sings The Blues was a guest at Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco CA. In 1949, she was arrested in this boutique hotel near Union Square for possession of opium, but later acquitted. Today her Room 203 is dedicated to Billie Holiday, complete with many pictures the walls. It books for up to $200 a night. hotelmarktwain.com

Summary: Many old inns once boasted that ”George Washington slept here”. They were on roads where he journeyed by horse and carriage from Virginia as soldier and president in Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. Throughout America today, the tradition continues, and history-loving travelers can find historic hotel rooms everywhere.

 
 
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