Long Way from Rabbit Hunting

John Q. Hammons was trapping rabbits to help his family during the Great Depression in 1931. A decade later he said he was broke manufacturing mortarless bricks. But by the 1950s, he had become a millionaire.

The largest independent developer of hotels in the United States, Hammons has played a major economic role in several cities with his upscale hotel and convention centers. There is reason to believe his latest effort in Rogers –?a 10-story, 250-room Embassy Suites with 30,000 SF of meeting space –?will have a similar impact.

At 83, Hammons is going as strong as ever. He’s built 150 hotels, and his publicly traded company owns and manages 56 of them.

Not many hotel builders have a biography written about them. Hammons does. “They Call Him John Q.: A Hotel Legend” is being distributed to hospitality schools of management nationwide. The book is available in paperback.

“I haven’t read it,” Hammons said in a recent interview with the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal, five months after the book was published. “I’ll get around to it.”

Not surprising. He’s been quite busy.

In spite of his numerous hotel projects, Hammons also found time to bring a minor league baseball team to his hometown of Springfield, Mo. He’s building a $26 million baseball facility that will house an affiliate of a Major League Baseball franchise in 2004. He knows what affiliate it is but refuses to divulge the information before next year.

While he is known for his extensive research and market analysis of an area before deciding to build, he did note an exception to the case with his Embassy Suites in west Little Rock.

“I was in Little Rock and saw this patch of woods off the road and said an Embassy Suites would look good there,” Hammons recalled. “So I just went ahead right then and built the damn thing.”