Only two U.S. presidents have spent a night in Pittsburgh since they began using airplanes for official business in the 1940s, according to sources close to past administrations and records kept by presidential libraries.

President Obama will become the third if he stays in Pittsburgh during next week's Group of 20 economic summit.

Obama is expected to stay in the Omni William Penn. Federal documents show the government booked more than 800 rooms in the Downtown hotel — reserving 250 for the president and his support staff.

The White House and State Department will spend an estimated $3 million for rooms in the Omni William Penn and the Pittsburgh Hilton Hotel, Downtown. For some of the rooms, the hotels offer a government discount.

Bob Page, marketing director for the William Penn, would not say whether Obama will stay in the hotel, but he said the William Penn is no stranger to presidents. Hotel lore has it that every president since Theodore Roosevelt at least visited the hotel while in office, he said.

"Many of them have come in to do speaking engagements, or whatever it may be. In almost every case, these presidents have had rooms reserved, but it's been hit or miss whether they spent the entire night here," Page said.

The hotel's lore, however, appears to be something of a myth.

President Nixon's daily diary shows he never visited Pittsburgh during his presidency — let alone the William Penn, according to Jason Schultz, a College Park, Md.-based archivist for the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

Nixon, though, apparently spent time at the William Penn before or after his presidency, according to a 1991 history of the hotel that appeared in Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine. A bellman recalled Nixon asking for a bottle of Scotch to be delivered to his room and then inviting the bellman into his suite for a drink, according to the account.

President Kennedy spent a night in the William Penn while in office, on Oct. 12, 1962. Back then, the hotel was known as the Penn-Sheraton and Kennedy was busy campaigning for Democratic candidates for the midterm elections. His visit here included stops in Aliquippa, McKeesport, Monessen and Washington, as well as the University of Pittsburgh's Fitzgerald Fieldhouse, records show.

Page said Kennedy stayed in the hotel's presidential suite — the same one being used now. The 2,500-square-foot suite has three bedrooms, a formal living room with a grand piano, a dining room, a kitchen and a marble foyer with a crystal chandelier. Just down the hallway from the presidential suite is an unmarked door that opens to a passageway that leads to a crawl space, which was designed as a security measure, Page said.

Kennedy didn't have to use it — and neither did Mick Jagger or the Dalai Lama, who have stayed in the suite, Page said. The suite costs about $2,500 a night and "is booked more than you would imagine," he said.

Gerald Ford was the last sitting president to spend a night in Pittsburgh, which he visited twice during his presidency in the 1970s.

During his second visit — Oct. 25-26, 1976 — Ford spent a night in the Pittsburgh Hilton, said Christian Goos, archivist at the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Ford flew to Pittsburgh after an event in Portland, Ore., and then stayed in the Hilton. The next morning, he participated in a Pittsburgh Economic Club question-and-answer session in the hotel's grand ballroom, Goos said. After that, Ford toured Aliquippa's former J&L Steel plant and then returned to the airport, departing for Chicago.

"A lot of presidents come here, but they typically don't stay long. They just come in and go," said Robert O. Stakeley, archivist at the Senator John Heinz History Center in the Strip District.

He attributed such circumstances largely to Air Force One, which can get presidents between Pittsburgh and Washington in about a half-hour.

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