On Nov. 4, 1908, newly elected President William Howard Taft headed for a visit to Savannah. A special presidential reception committee, led by Mayor George W. Tiedemann, Congressman Charles G. Edwards and Postmaster General Henry Blunt Jr., met the president’s train at the Central of Georgia Railroad depot at Dover. Taft and his escort soon arrived at Savannah's first DeSoto Hotel (not the Hilton DeSoto), which was designed by architectural genius William Gibbons Preston and opened in 1880.