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BATTERY PARK HOTEL (OLD) | |
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| "Having a railroad did not by any means
Complete Asheville's happiness; for it had no hotel accommodations at
all commensurate with the tide of travel which immediately set in. At
this juncture came the late Col. Frank Coxe, who built the present
Battery Park Hotel. It was opened July 12, 1886, with Col. C. H.
Southwick manager. It has remained the principal hotel of Asheville
ever since. It has been twice enlarged and frequently improved. For
several years it was managed by the late E. P. McKissick. It is a
credit to this community, and has become an indispensable asset."
(1914, Arthur, p.508.) |
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| "When we alighted, weary, at the gate
of the pretty hotel, which crowns a gentle hill and commands a
pleasing, evergreen prospect of many gentle hills, a mile or so below
the works and wholly removed from all sordid associations, we were at
the point of willingness that the whole country should be devastated
by civilization. In the local imagination this hotel of the
company is a palace of unequaled magnificence, but probably its good
taste, comfort, and quiet elegance are not appreciated after all.
There is this to be said about Philadelphia--and it will go far in
pleading for it in the Last Day against its monotonous rectangularity
and the Babel-like ambition of its Public Building--that wherever its
influence extends there will be found comfortable lodgings and the
luxury of an undeniably excellent cuisine. The visible seal that
Philadelphia sets on its enterprise all through the South is a good
hotel." (1889, Warner, C. D. On Horseback..., pp.
42, 43.)
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| "Asheville's hotels are famous all over
the nation. Battery Park on a hill in the centre of the city of
Asheville, commanding prospects of the whole country around 'rus in
urbe,' also withdrawn enough for quiet but not selfishly excluded, its
drives, its electric car line, its whole environment make the guest
feel at home, the master of his time; his views, his comings and his
goings. An hour's contemplation of Mount Pisgah majestic against the
sky would furnish an army of exhausted preachers with new
metaphors.
The hotel a Queen Ann edifice, is three stories high 300 x 175 feet
in dimension, with broad verandahs which in winter are closed in by
glass." [North Carolina and Its Resources. State Board of
Agriculture. Raleigh: Winston. M.I. & J.C. Stewart, Public
Printers and Binders, 1896. p. 293-294] |
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Col. Frank Coxe, it is said, was a keen observer of opportunity.
He saw considerable future in the mountains of western North Carolina
and when he had made his fortunes in banking and in the Western
Carolina Railroad, as the first vice president of the corporation, he
came to Asheville and set about constructing what became one of the
leading hotels in the country. The Battery Park Hotel was a
powerful force in creating the tourist trade in the western North
Carolina region. Constructed on Stony Hill, also known as Battery
Porter Hill, the Battery Park Hotel stood high above the emerging
city. Frank Coxe was successful in attracting many wealthy
capitalist to the area and through his entrepreneurial efforts he
filled his hotel. Many famous leaders at the turn of the century
stayed in the hotel. Among those who stayed there were: Teddy
Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley,
William H. Harrison, and George W. Vanderbilt.
It is this last vacationing capitalist who had the most significant influence on the area. Vanderbilt, it is said, sat on the veranda of the Battery Park Hotel and looked toward Pisgah where he imagined the estate that filled the vast expanse of forest from the French Broad to the top of Mt. Pisgah. When the railroad inched its way into Asheville through Marion by 1886, Coxe was the president of the new line and even more wealthy than he had been as in the railroads early days. Following his death the many railroad holding of Coxe were purchased by Col. George L. Carter and became known as the Clinchfield Railroad. HW |
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See: E.M.
Ball Photographic Collection
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| See: Frank Coxe Papers - http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/coxef/coxef.html , particularly the photographic colletions. | |
Bibliography:
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