Andrew Johnson Hotel

The Andrew Johnson Hotel was constructed from 1918 to 1929 at the northeast end of the Gay Street Bridge in downtown Knoxville, rising eighteen stories above South Gay Street. It opened as a luxury hotel and quickly became one of the city's most prominent commercial buildings, providing competition for the older Farragut Hotel a few blocks north.

On the evening of December 31, 1952, country music star Hank Williams checked into the Andrew Johnson Hotel. Williams, who had been struggling with chronic pain and substance abuse, became ill during the night, and a Dr. P. H. Cardwell was summoned to administer injections of vitamin B12 and morphine. At about 10:45 PM, Williams and his driver Charles Carr departed for Canton, Ohio, where Williams was scheduled to perform on New Year's Day. By the time the car reached Oak Hill, West Virginia at dawn, Williams was dead.

The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and was converted to office space, housing Knox County and state government tenants for decades. Redevelopment plans to convert the building back to a hotel under the name 'Hotel Americana' were announced in 2017 and approved in 2020; as of recent reporting the renovation had not yet begun.

The Andrew Johnson Building is the published meeting point for US Ghost Adventures' Knoxville program (branded Knoxville Ghosts), which departs nightly from 912 South Gay Street and covers the Hank Williams story as part of its route. A separate, unaffiliated local operator, Haunted Knoxville Ghost Tours, runs investigation-based tours departing from Market Square, about a quarter mile away; no independent source ties that operator's route to this building, so it is not listed as one of its stops.