PHOENIX — Tucked unassumingly along busy Washington Street and footsteps from the light rail and Downtown Phoenix -- but miles and generations away from where it all began — you'll find the Swindall Tourist Inn.
The Swindall Tourist Inn was built all the way back in 1913, just a year after Arizona became a state. If you look outside the Swindall, it's easy to see that it's an old building, but it's what happened on the inside that tells the real story.
"This was a safe haven for African Americans to stay," says Steve Schumacher, the official historian for the Mayor of Phoenix's Office. Schumacher explains that for much of the first half of the 20th century, many prominent hotels would not allow Black travelers to stay there.
"African Americans at the time couldn't stay at the Adams or the Westward Ho. They got turned away, so the Swindall was a boarding house where black travelers could stay."
Legends like jazz great Count Basie and famous slugger Willie Mays were rumored to have stayed at the Swindall, but they weren't the only ones.
Jackie Robinson himself also reportedly stayed at the Swindall when he was in college. In 1947, Robinson would go on to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
But even as things changed on the field, off the field was a different story.
"Jackie Robinson peeled the band-aid off, but the wound was still there and festering," explains Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker, CEO and founder of Diamond Strategies, a leading justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion firm based in the Valley.
Dr. Whitaker explains places like the Swindall were safe spaces for the Black community, who were still very much facing the painful realities of a segregated society.
"Folks came to respect them on the field eventually, but there was a brutal beginning...and they were punished economically, physically, and socially when they transgressed those boundaries."
But even as the outside world remained restricted, inside the walls of the Swindall, there were no boundaries.
Schumacher says the Swindall became even more popular after it was featured in The Green Book, often referred to as "The Bible of Black Travel during Jim Crow."
Fast Facts - The Swindall Tourist Inn:
- Built in 1913
- It's located at 1021 E. Washington St.
- Also known as "The Swindall House"
- Schumacher says it was built by a family from Belgium, two adult sons building the home for their mother
- After her sons moved out, the woman would later open the home up to boarders, a common practice in the 1920s and 1930s
- The owner allowed Black travelers to stay at the boarding home at a time when most other hotels banned Black travelers
- In 1940, Golden and Elvira Swindall would purchase the home, which is how it got the name that's used today, "Swindall Tourist Inn."
- In 1947, Jackie Robinson was rumored to have stayed at the Swindall Tourist Inn when he was in college, although Schumacher says they have not been able to track down guestbooks from that time as proof.
- In the early 90s, The Desert Mashie Golf Club took ownership of the Swindall.
- The current owner now rents the building out to businesses to use as meeting space.
