Her energy got her into trouble as she bucked the city establishment. The "Times-Dispatch" on April 26, 1903 said that during her attempt to build the Hotel Richmond, she threatened to leave the city if she was not taxed at a more equitable rate for her Lexington as compared to the Murphy Hotel and the Jefferson Hotel. Indeed, she would not build the Hotel Richmond until she felt she was taxed at a more fair rate. She told the papers that: "I feel that I am being discriminated against because I am a woman, but if I am not wanted here, I can easily go somewhere else." "The Richmond News Leader" reported April 29, 1903 that she was "fuming and fretting" because of a high license fee that was to be placed on the hotel. Her issues with the city were not all about being a woman: she also stridently defended her use of "colored" men to do some of the excavation work.