Shake Rag native remembers The Southern Queen hotel during segregation

City to request for proposals following repairs

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – If you grew up anywhere around Bowling Green’s Shake Rag Historic District, you know all about The Southern Queen – a hotel and safe haven for black Americans when segregation was at its peak.

88-years-young Curtis ‘Smoke’ Cosby grew up in Bowling Green’s Shake Rag Historic District.

“It was in the Green Book, and it was the only place blacks could stay in Bowling Green,” Cosby remembered.

He only stepped foot into the building one time.

“When I was in the second grade, My first grade teacher took me over there for a tour of the hotel,” Cosby recalled. “I’d never seen anything like that before! It was a big step for me at that time. As the years went on, entertainers stayed there when they came to Bowling Green, like the Platters, Brook Brenton, James Brown. [In] ’50 or ’51, the Harlem Globetrotters came here.”

Early this June, The Bowling Green City Commission voted unanimously to preserve the Southern Queen Hotel and two of its neighboring properties.

Director of The City of Bowling Green’s Neighborhood & Community Services Brent Childers said, “[The city] felt like the only way these properties could be saved and The Southern Queen could be saved is if the city did step up and buy this. If this was left to the market, the market would dictate what happens to this property, and we didn’t feel confident that the building would remain.”

Following deep cleaning and repairs, the city will issue a request for proposals this fall.

“What we heard when we talked to everyone was they wanted to see the neighborhood saved,” Childers said.

Cosby added, “I think it should be saved because there’s a lot of history in there.”

Childers hopes to see the restoration – whatever it may turn into – complete in 2023.