Description

The Homestead and the C&O Railway

This is  in our series of 5½ x8½ -inch booklets about various C&O subjects.  32 pages plus cover, color printing throughout. Fully illustrated with historical photos and maps.

This is a summary history of how the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Homestead Resort Hotel in Hot Springs, Va. became inexorably interdependent in the period 1890-1960s. C&O’s new president M. E. Ingalls formed the Va. Hot Springs Co. in 1890 and purchased the hotel. In subsequent years he (and later his family) as principal owners, rebuilt, expanded, and made it one of the premier resorts in the nation.

Ingalls had C&O build a 25-mile branch to Hot Springs from its main line at Covington. This allowed Pullman sleeping cars from New York city and other points to run directly to the hotel. It became one of the most popular resorts in the East and a major element in C&O’s passenger service operations right into the 1960s.

This booklet tells the story of the hotel and how the C&O’s trains served it. The story is often mentioned in C&OHS and other railroad history books, but this small publication now gives the “real” background for the first time.

Regular price $14.95 – but members pay only $9.95 (no further member discount on this).

Additional information