Museum

Wells’Built Museum

Orlando, United States

Wells’Built Museum occupies a former hotel in Orlando’s Parramore neighbourhood, preserving African American history and the story of travel under segregation. Dr. William Monroe Wells built the hotel to provide lodging for Black visitors excluded from other accommodations.

Guide

The brick hotel on South Street was built to answer a basic need denied to many Black travelers: a safe place to stay. Dr. William Monroe Wells, an African American physician and business owner, opened the Wells’Built Hotel in 1929 during segregation.

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Quick facts

  • Dr. William Monroe Wells built the hotel in 1926; it opened in 1929.
  • It provided lodging to African Americans during segregation.
  • The former hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

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