Cooper Hotels

In 1962 Irby Cooper and his father, Louis, entered the hotel business. They formed CSS Hotels with two partners; Raymond Shainberg, a Memphis attorney, and his father-in-law, Louis Sturman. They started by purchasing the Holiday Inn franchise for Gatlinburg, Tennessee, then a mountain village. At first, Kemmons Wilson, Holiday Inn founder, cautioned the new partners. But they departed from his roadside, business hotel tradition and established one of the first Holiday Inn resorts.