End of The White

In the Civil War's dingdong battle for West Virginia, when the wounded and the dying of the Union and Confederate armies were laid in rows in the glittering ballroom at White Sulphur Springs--depending on which side held the hotel--this resort nestling in the Alleghenies had already been famed for half a century. Its great colonial hotel, known familiarly as The White, had been built a decade earlier. Before that there were rows of cottages--Paradise Row for the newlyweds, Alabama and Georgia Rows for the rich from those States, Wolf Row for the bachelors.*

Before the railroads the habitues came on horseback and in coach-&-fours with Negro outriders. Then Chesapeake & Ohio built its main line past the resort. Three U.S. Presidents (Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore) had their summer White House at White Sulphur: 13 visited there. In 1860, the gay Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) came to The White incognito. Fifty-nine years later, his playboy grandson, the Prince of Wales who was to become Edward VIII, repeated the visit.

The White was torn down in 1913, replaced by the larger, more elaborate Greenbrier. But the resort continued to be known as The White. The C. & O. bought it, made it into one of the few U.S. luxury resorts to compare with Europe's swankier spas. Its 7,000 acres have three golf courses; there is a spur for private railroad cars, an airport for private planes. For five months, German diplomats and newsmen were quartered there before being exchanged for Americans held in Europe.

Last week the Greenbrier closed its doors, advertised all its furnishings for sale. The Army was getting ready to take it over as a hospital. Once more The White would house the sick and wounded of war.

* Ample proof that 1942's term of "wolf" for a determined satyr is not new. Wrote a visitor to White Sulphur in the 1830s: "Unless you be young and foolish, fond of noise and nonsense, frolic and fun, wine and wassail, sleepless nights and days of headache, avoid Wolf Row."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.