-
“I think the Bing House represents what’s good about Plant City,” William Thomas, of the Improvement League, said. “To have a woman who had the desire to start her own business, I think that says a lot.”
-
It wasn’t just guests who stayed in the Bing Rooming House. Janie Wheeler Bing and her family, including her son and prominent educator Elijah Bing, lived on the bottom floor of the house.
-
The Bing Rooming House was anchored in the black district during desegregation. Throughout the United States, there are still signs of where black districts used to be. Most are marked by railroad tracks. The Collins Street rail served as a divider.
-
William Thomas, president of the Improvement League of Plant City, facilitates cultural events in Plant City out of the Bing Rooming House. “This house anchored the corner of the black business district," Thomas said.
-
The Bing Rooming House was built from the ground up, and then lifted. In 2003, the home was lifted up so that a concrete platform, pictured, could be added to the building’s foundation. The improvements that started in 2003 were done in three phases.
-
When the building was being used as a boarding house, there were only three all-black high schools in Hillsborough County, one of which was Marshall High School. In 1964, the school’s football team went undefeated.
-
As a hotel, the Bing Rooming House was sought out by white supremacists. “There are some accounts of white supremacists coming through that area,” Thomas said. “The Ku Klux Klan threatened the neighborhood.” Residents chased the KKK out of town.
-
In the 1960s, Elijah Bing penned a proposed grant to the federal government, asking for money to fund Hillsborough County’s desegregation plan. “(The plan) relied heavily on bussing to integrate schools,” Thomas said. Elijah Bing was awarded the grant.
-
The Bing Rooming House, courtesy of the Photo Archives & History Center.
Opened in 1925, the building is named after Janie Wheeler Bing, the hotel’s first owner. It was a place for people to stay during segregation and included a restaurant and 10 bedrooms at the hotel’s peak. Among those who stayed there was Curt Flood, a Major League Baseball player. It closed in 1970. The building was passed to James Washington, Bing’s grandson. Washington deeded the property to the nonprofit Improvement League, in 1999, and it operates it as a museum.
Added to register: 2002
Address: 205 S. Allen St.
Visiting hours: 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday
Period of significance: 1925 to to 1974
