The Read House traces its history to 1872, but the darker layer beneath its legend reaches back to the earlier Crutchfield House that stood on the same site. In 1863, that predecessor building was pressed into service as a military hospital for both Confederate and Union troops, with hundreds treated there and many dying within its walls before the old hotel burned in 1867. The current grand hotel rose later, and its most famous supernatural story centres on Room 311, one of the best-known haunted-room legends in the American South. According to the version promoted by the hotel, a woman named Annalisa Netherly was allegedly beheaded in the bathtub there by a jealous lover in 1927. Guests have since reported unexplained noises, flickering lights, running water, and shadowy figures in the room, with the activity strong enough that the hotel still foregrounds the haunting on its own site. The older hospital history gives the wider building a broader death-soaked backdrop, but it is Room 311 that concentrates the legend into one precise, visitable space.