some replies from my facebook page...
It was owned by a woman named Kate who ran a brothel. All the famous old pictures of the President visiting the Shoals in the old black car working on the TVA project - the car belonged to Kate.
_______________________________________________
http://www.encyclopediaofalaba...imedia.jsp?id=m-3314 - in 1933 President Roosevelt visited the dam and used her open air touring car when he visited the cities. My mom owns another house that was Kate's. She bought it for one of her girls who had a child.
______________________________________________
Well at last count the Tommy and John van zandt team owned it. Tommy is the guy who used to d.j. for one of the radio stations who was the first in this area to welcome Elvis Presleys' music and Tommy actually interviewed Mr Presley in rare form(when Elvis was just starting out),so I find it hard to believe, if they still own it, they would ever sell it for money and risk someone destroying this landmark for the sake of greed.
______________________________________________
John Van Sandt is renovating it. I'm not sure if I spelled his last name correctly, but it's the guy who owns the Xpress Oil place. He contacted me to find out about the history of the place a few years ago, just after he purcha...sed it. At that time, he planned to use the upstairs as an office, and was considering devoting one of the two downstairs rooms to a museum-like exhibit detailing the history of the house.
They have the dates wrong on the brothel: Kate was living there and had girls living/working there with her at least through the Depression.
_______________________________________________
By the way, census records confirm the dates. Oh, and if you're particularly interested in the Oak Street house - or Kate, for that matter - you can go to the genealogy/local history room at the FloPatch public library and ask Lee to see the file on that house. You'll find some of my notes that Joy referenced above included in there.