Asheville Sulpher Springs Hotel

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Asheville Sulpher Springs Hotel (Deaver's Springs)
1897 -	Asheville, NC
Asheville Sulpher Springs [Hotel Belmont] Souvenir of Asheville or the Sky-Land, p. 71] Ramsey Library, UNCA
"On the last day of February , 1827, Robert Henry and his slave Sam discovered this spring, five miles west of Asheville, and about the year 1830 his son-in-law, Col. Reuben Deaver, built a wooden hotel on the hill above and began taking summer boarders. Such was the patronage that an addition had to be made to the hotel every year. As many as five hundred are said to have been there at one time, and the neighborhood was ransacked for beds, bedding, chairs, and provision. Most of the visitors came from South Carolina, among whom were the Pickneys, Elmores, Butlers, Pickenses, Prestons, Alstons, Kerrisons, and others. Mr. John Keitt was the first person buried on Sulpher Springs hill, August 27, 1836. The fact that the Pickneys were almost constant visitors accounts for the prevalence of the given name Pink in the neighborhood of Asheville. The Alstons reserved the corner rooms on the second floor from May till frost every season. Besides the hotel, an L-shaped building, there were cabins on the grounds. There were bowling alleys, billard tables, shuffle-boards and other games. A large ball-room and a string band, composed of free negroes from Charleston and Columbia, provided the music for dancing. One of these negroes was named Randall, who had been presented with a purse of $5000 by the white people of South Carolina for having given information about a contemplated negro insurrection at Charleston; and another of these musicians was named Lapitude, who owned a plantation near Charleston and forty slaves. He was a man of some education, and the manner of a Chesterfield. From its opening till 1860 there were more summer visitors at Deaver's Springs than in Asheville... 'a few summer visitors would sometimes make a short stop in passing through to Deaver's Springs or to Warm Springs, Wade Hampton and others with fast teams driving from Asheville to Warm Springs for dinner.' The old hotel was burned in December, 1862, was rebuilt by E.G. Carrier -- of brick this time -- in 1887, and known, first as Carrier's Springs and then as the Belmont. It was again burned in September, 1891, while under the management of Dr. Carl Von Ruck. From 1889 till 1894 an electric railway ran from Asheville to the Spring, but it was abandoned. " (1914, Arthur, p. 502-03)
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/books/booklets/travel%20guide/Travel%20Guide%20web%20page.htm Within the Illustrated Guide Book of North Carolina Mountains, this hotel is mentioned.