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As the railroad approached the town of Elkin, NC in 1890, Alexander Chatham of Elkin and his son Hugh, along with A.H. Eller, V.O. Thompson, W.T. Vogler, W.W. Wood and others of Winston-Salem began a conversation about developing a mountain retreat near the railroad terminus. Soon they had incorporated the Roaring Gap Summer Resort Company, which purchased several dozen acres of mountaintop land in Alleghany County, boasting seven springs and spectacular views into Wilkes, Surry, Caldwell, Ashe and Watauga Counties. Anyone owning stock valued at $250 or more would be granted a lot near a new hotel, which would be built by a second company, the Roaring Gap Hotel Company. The Roaring Gap Hotel opened on June 15, 1894…advertising 60 rooms at $1 per night, $20 per month…a special railroad fare of $3, plus a 50¢ hack ride would whisk you from the muggy city of Greensboro to the crisp mountain air in barely three hours….and so a legend was born. By the early 20th century, some of the lot owners were building “cottages” and some family members were spending the whole summer in the cooling airs at “the Gap.”
The Roaring Gap hotel was a success, but the appeal was limited, because the three hours from Greensboro was a myth…the hack ride from the Elkin train depot took at least four hours and could double if the old buggy path to the Gap was muddy. Some of the investors decided that a railroad line to the hotel would solve that problem. In 1907, many of the same men who were already involved with Roaring Gap incorporated the Elkin & Alleghany Railroad. The original intent was to build a rail line from Elkin to the Gap, with a long range idea of continuing to Jefferson, sixty miles away, to connect to a proposed extension of the Norfolk & Western out of Fries, Virginia. Work started at once, but progress was slow because just beyond Elkin Creek, the terrain became the rugged eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The railroad rented convicts from the state prisons to do the heavy work, reimbursing the state with shares of stock in the company. By the spring of 1911, 12 miles of grading had been completed and a mile of track had been laid. A grand opening of the railroad celebration was scheduled for July 4, 1911. There was a parade, a free carnival show, and Professor Collins of Charlotte made two hot air balloon ascensions, both times parachuting safely to the hillside by the school. Former governor Charles B. Aycock gave the keynote address, then as many people as possible, including the entire local brass band, piled aboard the locomotive and tender for a one mile excursion out, and another mile back, on the E&A’s first train.
Just before the grand opening, the Whiteville News-Reporter revealed that John Mills, the president of the Raleigh & Southport Railroad, had acquired control of the Elkin & Alleghany, while simultaneously announcing the immediate extension of the Raleigh & Southport westward to Sanford. The Lexington Dispatch speculated that Mills’ purpose was to extend the Elkin & Alleghany to the new Winston-Salem Southbound at Lexington or directly to Sanford, either way creating a continuous link for hauling coal from the trans-Appalachian region to the deep water harbor in Southport.
Construction on the Elkin & Alleghany immediately accelerated, with the trackage reaching Thurmond, on the Surry-Wilkes border, by the end of 1911, a total of about 12 miles. Soon thereafter, the line was extended to Doughton, in Wilkes County, then curled back into Surry County to end at a logging operation know simply as Veneer, near the Alleghany County line. The total distance was about 18 miles.
That connection sufficed to make the line profitable. The Elkin Veneer Company, founded in Elkin before 1905, had long since moved to the coast, but still maintained a transshipment facility in Elkin to move logs from Veneer to their new factory. But that facility shipped fewer and fewer logs each year and in early 1919 the Elkin & Alleghany went bankrupt. It was sold out of receivership on October 7, 1919 to a group of Elkin and Winston-Salem men who attempted to continue the line under its original name, Elkin & Alleghany.
Three more miles were graded, barely extending into Alleghany County, but no track was laid. The new owners hired Gaither Billings to design a new kind of vehicle, thought to be the first gasoline powered locomotive in the United States. It was built on a ten ton Ford truck chassis, with the front wheels being a railroad handcar and the rear driving wheels taken from a regular locomotive. The vehicle could carry 24 passengers, mail and small parcels. A four wheel trailer was added for larger freight.
Noah Foard, a former E&A fireman, was hired to conduct daily runs between Elkin and Thurmond. Because of the fuel savings, about $2.50 for gasoline versus $75 for traditional coal for the round trip, that run was profitable, but the railroad itself, without a major freight shipper, fell deeper into debt every year. With two area Doughtons, one as governor and one as highway commissioner , in power, the “Good Roads” movement flourished in the region. NC highway 26 was built in the early 1920s, connecting Elkin to Jefferson, and soon that road became a part of US highway 21, from Cleveland, Ohio to Yemassee, South Carolina. By the late 1920s, the E&A had sunken into the slough of despond. All operations ceased. In July, 1931, with permission from the state, the line was officially abandoned, never having reached its namesake Alleghany County.
Meanwhile, the Roaring Gap Hotel caught fire about 3:00 AM on December 28, 1913 and burned, taking with it the cottage of Alexander Chatham. Arson was suspected but never proven. An immediate attempt was made to rebuild the hotel, but the result was a much smaller operation than the original. No one wanted to make a big investment until the railway was complete. Original investors continued to build private cottages, but hotel matters muddled along for a few years. In June, 1922, inspired by the completion of NC highway 26, a group of Elkin and Winston-Salem business leaders met at the new Robert E. Lee hotel in Winston-Salem to discuss a serious effort to build a new resort, complete with hotel, golf course, fishing and swimming lake and other attractions.
A committee consisting of Charles Hill, James G. Hanes, W.G. Jerome, Thurmond Chatham and F.J. Liipfert was organized to visit the potential site and report on the feasibility of the project. Their report was positive and a corporation, with initial capital of $400,000, was formed to build the resort. Among the incorporaters were the men already named and Alec Hanes, James Norfleet, James A. Gray, Bowman Gray, Will Reynolds, William Hendren, A.F. Young, John Gilmer, Burton Craige, B.S. Womble, Hugh Chatham, Eugene and Will Vogler, Norman and Will Stockton, Dr. P.E. Gray, R.S. and Alec Galloway, Peter Gorrell, and Ed Lassiter. Initially, Ellis Maples, who would later design the Reynolds Park, Winston Lake, Maple Chase (formerly Pine Brook), Maple Leaf (Kernersville) and Bermuda Run (East) courses, was mentioned as the architect for the golf course, but that soon changed.
By the beginning of the 1920s, the Tufts family had established Pinehurst as the winter golf capitol of the nation. But the summer period, from June to September was a slow time. Because it would be a summer resort, Leonard Tufts took an immediate interest in the Roaring Gap Club project, became an investor and was elected the first president. He brought with him the best known architect in golf, Donald Ross, who replaced his protege Maples as course architect. Ross’s 6,200 yard course, along with the Graystone Inn and Lake Louise all opened in June, 1926.
By then the entire operation was closely synched with Pinehurst. Ross assistants Alex Innis, Ellis Maples and Palmer Maples would serve as interns in the role of club pro for the early years. And the Graystone Inn came under the management of the Carolina Hotel’s chief E.G. Fitzgerald. Most of the rest of the professional staff came from Pinehurst as well, leaving a skeleton crew behind in the Sandhills during the summer. Tufts called Roaring Gap the “Pinehurst of the hills.”
At that time, Lake Louise was still filling, covering about 40 of the anticipated 55-60 acres. The inn had only 40 of its planned 65 rooms open. On Saturday, July 24, a huge crowd descended on the inn. About 20 guests had to be shuffled to the new Elkin Hotel. Management assured all that construction at the inn would resume immediately after Labor Day and that at least 65 rooms would be available by the following summer. It had been planned to begin the 1927 season in early June, but work was still underway at the inn, which would not open until late June.
Only the first nine holes of the golf course were ready for the 1926 grand opening. The back nine would open later in the summer. But Leonard Tufts had already decided upon a change in the order of holes. He reasoned, based on the train schedules, that most hotel guests would not arrive until afternoon, and that many would be eager to get right on the golf course. So he persuaded Donald Ross to allow him to temporarily change the hole order, making number five the first hole, and number four the home hole. The golf clubhouse did not get built until 1939, so the “temporary” reordering lasted for over a decade. In early July of 1927, 18-year-old Palmer Maples, then serving as the “intern” club pro, scored the first hole-in-one at Roaring Gap, acing the 135 yard number two hole (now number six) with a six iron.
Roaring Gap would go on to become a huge success, with dozens of stockholders building “cottages” over the next few decades. The Gap would become the center of western Piedmont social life and its operation would provide summer jobs for many locals and area college students. It was a truly white enclave, with almost no black employees. The original maids and waitresses at the Graystone were all white college girls. The maids wore white uniforms; the waitresses wore gray. But during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Leonard Tufts fell upon hard times and the Pinehurst connection was broken in 1933. The Graystone Inn and golf and tennis operations would eventually make a connection with a Florida resort, with professional staff moving back and forth seasonally. But by the end of the 20th century, the Donald Ross golf course had become a mere shadow of its former self. New trees had intruded into Ross’s intended playing angles. Modern mechanized mowing had squared off the intricate curves of Ross’s greens. And sedimental accumulation had shrunken the greens and bunkers by as much as 30%.
Dunlop White, who had been a member of the golf committee for years, became concerned. In 2002, he contacted a young Greensboro golf course restoration architect, Kris Spencer. Poring over White’s collection of documents and the Tufts Pinehurst archive, they began to discuss restoring the golf course to Donald Ross’s original plan. Having gained some support from others, they began incrementally, with judicious tree removal, that same year. Full restoration of greens and bunkers would cost a significant amount of money, which would not begin until 2012. Appropriately, they started with the most famous green on the course, the 17th, which has one of the most spectacular golf course views in the world, overlooking, as it does, Pilot Mountain and the Sauratowns far below in the Piedmont, and on a clear day, bits of downtown Winston-Salem.
Spencer and his crew removed the sod from the greens one by one, scraped away the sediment and returned the greens to their original size and shape. The bunkers, some of which had become mere slits, were expanded to become real, or, in many cases, psychological, threats. Two years later, in 2014, the work was finished. Today, the Roaring Gap golf course and the Graystone Inn look much as they did in the 1920s, a vision of the past rare in modern times.
See Golf Club Atlas’s lengthy and detailed account of the Roaring Gap restoration here:
http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/roaring-gap/
The website of Kris Spence Golf Design can be found here:
Other images from Roaring Gap and the Elkin & Allegheny:
Miss Emma was tiny and frail, but she was the heart of the Academy…see our illustrated blog post on her remarkable life here:
https://northcarolinaroom.wordpress.com/2016/07/04/miss-emma-lehman-heart-of-the-academy/
North Carolina Collection 
W.G. Jerome was the first President of the Winston-Salem Regional Association in 1917. We are celebrating our 100th anniversary this year.
Excellent information. Always wondered when Lake Louise was created. Thanks.
My grandfather, A. H. Eller, was the Secretary/Treasurer of the Roaring Gap Summer Resort Co., incorporated in 1894. I have his No. 2 share of stock.
This was most interesting to read about the history. I had the pleasure of playing Roaring Gap for over 30 years , beginning around 1974. Initially, we had 8 golfers and played once in the spring and again in the fall. Norwood Robinson was kind enough to let us play under his membership. Then we paid him for our expenses, along with an extra “thank you” gift. We played 18 in the morning stopped for lunch, then 18 in the afternoon. Then we played a 9 hole game, foursome against foursome. Such fun , and Roaring Gap became my all time favorite course in the state. On two occasions we played 54 holes. The 3rd time we tried to we had to stop after 52 holes because of darkness. Such fun back in the day.
This is fascinating history! My family has a home in the neighboring High Meadows Club, where I spent summers and weeks in the fall as a kid. I was always curious about the history of this community!