St. James Hotel

Built in 1837 on the bank of the Alabama River, the St. James is said to be the only antebellum riverfront hotel still standing in the Southeast. After the Battle of Selma in April 1865, Union forces occupied the city and took the hotel as their headquarters, and it survived the burning of much of Selma that followed. Business drained away to a newer hotel and the St. James closed in 1892, then stood empty for most of a century. A $6 million restoration brought it back in 1997. The City of Selma later owned it, sold it in 2018, and after a further renovation it reopened in January 2021. It closed again in August 2025 and reopened in September 2026, still locally run, with 55 rooms. Staff and guests have long described a man in 1880s dress in the upper-floor rooms, and the scent of lavender in the corridors, which the hotel's tradition attributes to a woman called Lucinda. Local telling makes the man the outlaw Jesse James, said to have stayed here with his brother Frank in 1881, though no record confirms that visit.