Wish You Were Here: Three Centuries of Travel to Williamsburg

INTRODUCTION

On October 20, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared Williamsburg’s Duke of Gloucester Street “the most historic avenue in all America.” This marked a pivotal moment for the town inaugurating a new and significant role as a model of historic preservation and a place to immerse Americans in an authentic, carefully restored recreation of Virginia’s colonial capital. Williamsburg once again came into the limelight after years of experiencing a decline in stature after the move of Virginia’s colonial capital to Richmond in 1780. The growth of Williamsburg’s tourist industry in the early twentieth century transformed the town in much the same way its designation as the British colony’s capital did in the eighteenth century. With both events, Williamsburg became an important destination for travelers offering cultural attractions, opportunities for civic discourse, and encounters with individuals from around the world. The story of Williamsburg’s evolution from colonial capital to tourist destination is a remarkable journey extending through several centuries and highlighted through a variety of objects held by the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library.

When the English first invaded Tsenacommacah (Virginia) in 1607, the area that would become Williamsburg belonged to the Paspahegh, Kiskiak, and surrounding Algonquian-speaking tribes, who used these lands as communal hunting grounds. The English would come to collectively call these tribes the Powhatans, though not all of the Algonquian-speaking tribes were allied under the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom for that entire era. By the 1630s, the area was under English control and the Virginia Assembly passed an act to establish a settlement at the site called Middle Plantation. Behind a wooden palisade stretching for six miles across the peninsula upon which it sat, Middle Plantation was seen as an attractive location by land-hungry settlers.

Throughout the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the settlement grew and changed in significant ways. It became a center of educational, governmental, religious, and business activity for the colony. A parish church and college were founded at Middle Plantation before the end of the seventeenth century. In 1699, Middle Plantation became Williamsburg, and the capital was transferred there from Jamestown. More and better residences were established in the town, and it became an attractive place to locate one’s business. As Williamsburg grew, it became a destination for a wide variety of travelers. On Williamsburg’s streets, one might encounter recent immigrants or sailors from Europe, delegations of representatives from various Indigenous nations, colonists from the mainland colonies or the West Indies, as well as those brought from Africa against their will.

Meetings of the courts, General Assembly, market days, and fair days all provided reasons for people to travel to Williamsburg. There, local taverns provided not just accommodation and lodging but also spaces for entertainment where dances, lectures, gambling, music, and other entertainments could be enjoyed. The Raleigh Tavern, King’s Arms, and Wetherburn’s Tavern were just a few of the taverns located on Williamsburg’s main street running from the College of William and Mary to the Capitol. In the second decade of the eighteenth century, Williamsburg saw the opening of its first theater. In the decades before the Revolution, the American Company of Comedians would perform the plays of Shakespeare and others in the second and third theaters to open there. Outdoors, colonists could compete in or watch horse races and other sporting events.

Pre-Restoration Travel to Williamsburg

The American Revolution changed Williamsburg. By war’s end, it was no longer the seat of government for the state and the Governor’s Palace had burned to the ground. Taverns still provided refreshment, lodging, and recreation for travelers. Court, fair and market days were still important events. But the crowds which filled Williamsburg to overflowing when the General Assembly and General Court met during Public Times were not to be seen again for many years.

Accounts of visitors to Williamsburg in the years after the Revolution paint an unflattering picture of the town. Visitors often compared the town’s present state with its former role as capital of Virginia. Following his visit to Williamsburg, the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt wrote that the removal of the capital “has reduced Williamsburg to a village.” Of the Capitol itself, he wrote, “It is a tolerably handsome brick building, but is falling to ruin.” Auguste Levasseur, Lafayette’s private secretary, accompanied the Marquis on his tour of the United States in 1824 and 1825. During the tour, they visited Williamsburg. Of the town, Levasseur wrote that it “is now a town of moderate size, preserving nothing of its ancient importance.” Still, Williamsburg persevered and served the needs of its residents and others in its immediate vicinity. The Civil War brought some disruption to the town but was not the cause of any profound changes. Those would come later.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, recreational travel increased as a pastime. Passenger trains and the introduction of the automobile allowed families to travel longer distances and explore sites beyond the radius of big cities. This coincided with a growing interest amongst Virginia residents in preserving historic sites important to the region’s heritage. America’s Centennial celebrations in 1876, coupled with the celebration of the Yorktown Centennial in 1881, brought attention to Williamsburg’s surviving historic structures, such as the Courthouse, Powder Magazine, and Bruton Parish Church. The Centennial Photographic Company produced a series of albumen photographs to commemorate the history of various regions throughout the United States, including Williamsburg.

In 1889, Cynthia Beverley Tucker Coleman and Mary Jeffrey Galt founded the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. One of the organization’s first projects, the Powder Magazine on Market Square, involved stabilizing and restoring the structure. A museum opened inside with displays of colonial artifacts, portraits, and two stained glass windows featuring Alexander Spotswood and Nathaniel Bacon. Admission initially cost ten cents.

The APVA also acquired the site of Williamsburg’s colonial Capitol building at the east end of Duke of Gloucester Street in 1897. After excavating the Capitol’s foundations and capping them with cement to show the outlines of the building, the APVA erected a memorial in 1904 to commemorate members of the House of Burgesses who formed associations against the importation of British goods.

The grand re-opening of the renovated Colonial Hotel occurred on January 3, 1896. Located on the site of today’s Chowning’s Tavern, the hotel welcomed an influx of visitors during the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1907, the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition held in Norfolk, Virginia offered an opportunity to bring attention to other historic attractions in towns along the way. A brochure for the Colonial Inn, coupled with some of the earliest color postcards produced to promote Williamsburg as a travel destination, highlight the sites that formed part of a turn-of-the century tourist’s visit to the town.

Transportation

Improved and faster methods of transportation developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, contributing to the growth of leisure travel in the United States. The advent of rail transportation to and from Williamsburg occurred in the 1880s and led to heightened interest in Williamsburg as an attraction along the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad’s passenger train route. Plans for the celebration of the Yorktown Centennial in 1881, commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown, pushed the C&O Railroad to accelerate completion of the Peninsula Extension of the railway. A two-story frame structure built on the east side of the site of the Governor’s Palace served as the first train depot and quickly became a transportation hub. An article published in the Virginia Gazette in 1889 described Williamsburg as “the most historically interesting city on the American continent” and noted that it offered “Five trains east and west, with connections north and south daily.”

Virginia’s waterways continued to provide an important mode of transportation in conjunction with the railroad. Steamboats and ferries offered travelers more direct routes to certain destinations in an era when interstate highways did not exist. The steamboat “Louise” saved the day during the Yorktown Centennial by providing an alternate route to Yorktown when delays occurred with the construction of railroad tracks through Williamsburg. “Louise” and another boat, “Pocahontas,” continued to transport passengers in the early twentieth century, as evidenced by photos of the steamers in a travel album compiled by a Williamsburg resident.

After Rockefeller committed to fund the Restoration effort in November 1927, work progressed quickly over the next five years. Landscape Architect Arthur Shurcliff realized that the layout of roadways and the design of traffic flow would be a critical component of the Restoration to accommodate modern transportation. He prepared preliminary concept sketches offering various alternatives for routing autos and trains in and about Williamsburg. To keep traffic from detracting from the ambiance of the Historic Area, the Colonial Parkway tunnel was constructed underneath the Historic Area and opened in 1949 to divert motorists along the segment of the parkway passing through Williamsburg.

Once Colonial Williamsburg opened as a museum, officials began to consider modes of transportation for guests who might not be able to walk through the entire Historic Area. By the late 1930s, carriage rides for guests began to be offered. In 1940, Colonial Williamsburg briefly experimented with the introduction of tractor trains like those used at Versailles to move visitors from the hotels and reception center to various points in the Historic Area. However, shifting priorities due to World War II led to the quick demise of the service. An experimental bus service, free of charge for ticket holders, was introduced in the Fall of 1950 and on July 8, 1951, the buses became a permanent modern convenience for guests.

The introduction of air travel for tourists in the 1950s offered another mode for visiting Williamsburg. Commercial airline flights began arriving at the Patrick Henry Air Field in Newport News, Virginia in 1949. The airport quickly became a hub for arriving and departing dignitaries whose official visits to the United States often included a trip to Colonial Williamsburg.

Accomodations

With the opening of several exhibition buildings in the early 1930s, the quantity of guests arriving soon outnumbered the town’s available accommodations. Colonial Williamsburg purchased the existing Colonial Inn on Market Square and opened it as the Williamsburg Inn in 1931. It quickly became clear that the twenty-one-room hotel would not be a long-term solution to the overnight guest problem. Thus, planning commenced for the new hotel which became today’s Williamsburg Inn. Architects chose a site on the south side of Francis Street adjacent to the Historic Area where both the hotel and resort amenities could be constructed. Opened on April 3, 1937, the Inn’s neoclassical façade drew guests into an elegant Regency style interior. Mr. Rockefeller pronounced the result “satisfying, beautiful, and homelike.”

A second lodging option, the Williamsburg Lodge, opened on March 15, 1939, on South England Street directly across from the Information Center, a centralized point for commencing tours of the Historic Area. An unobtrusive brick façade led into a spacious lobby and lounge with chairs, writing tables, and a large fireplace. Upstairs, forty-one guest rooms with cypress paneling, twin beds, and private bathrooms offered comfortable, unpretentious accommodations. Amenities included a Game Room large enough to accommodate conventions, lectures, or motion picture screenings.

As visitation and automobile traffic increased after World War II, Colonial Williamsburg recognized the need to relocate its center for visitor arrivals to a site that was further away from the Historic Area yet still easily accessible. Thus, a new Information Center was built to the north of the Historic Area, opening in 1957. Adjacent to the new center and opening at the same time, the Motor House complex was designed in a contemporary style to differentiate it from the colonial buildings of the Historic Area while providing an attractive, modern, and comfortable accommodation for visitors. The interior of the Motor House reflected the mid-century modern style popular at the time with bright color combinations, sleek and simple lines, and minimal decorative ornamentation. Furnishings included a combination of wooden paneling and textured wall coverings, multi-colored window louvers, striped bedspreads, brightly colored lounge chairs, dressing tables, and coved lighting. Corner rooms on the units with double panoramic windows gave visitors an added sense of being integrated with their natural surroundings. Free shuttle buses carried visitors throughout the day between the Information Center and the Motor House and the Historic Area to reduce car traffic in the Historic Area. Visitor amenities at the Motor House included a large cafeteria, lounge area, television room, gift shop, swimming pool, and children’s playground.

Community Remembrances

Today most visitors to Colonial Williamsburg commemorate their experiences instantaneously with photos and comments posted to social media. A century ago, scrapbooks, letters, and postcards were in vogue, and the period from the 1890s-1930s witnessed a rise in the production of many such personal mementoes. The Rockefeller Library holds a variety of items documenting the impressions of tourists between the 1930s and the 1980s.

One of the most entertaining albums documenting the early tourist experience was created by Adaline Humphreys, who traveled to Williamsburg with her sister, Maude, in 1938 and wrote a lengthy travelogue about her “glorious trip” to accompany travel photos. She describes reaching Williamsburg in the evening and finding it “most orderly and quiet, most citizens having long since closed their shutters and snuffed their candles.” The following day, after touring “various points of beauty and eminence” the two dined at the Travis House restaurant, where they noted “The excellence of the Fruit Shrub…has not been equaled in any part of the country.”

A letter from Bernice Friedberg to her sister Marie in October 1939 documents another early tourist’s visit and her dinner at the Williamsburg Inn where “in all my life I never enjoyed a better meal.” Bernice detailed the decoration of her room at the Williamsburg Lodge, her delight at the Governor’s Palace, what she remembered about the archaeological exhibit at the Court House, and Mrs. Rockefeller’s folk art displayed in the Ludwell Paradise House. Bernice ran out of steam by the letter’s end and concluded that “I will never be able to carry out my original intention of getting these two days down in black and white. I should have to write a book.”

The post World War II expansion of Colonial Williamsburg is reflected in the scrapbook of Mr. and Mrs. Schenker. A New York couple who traveled to Williamsburg for their honeymoon, the Schenkers compiled an album encompassing everything from hotel mementoes to ticket stubs, pamphlets, and postcards. Even the album itself is one they purchased at a Colonial Williamsburg trade shop. The contents document many of the additions to Colonial Williamsburg in the 1950s including the Motor House, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Brush-Everard House, King’s Arms Tavern, and Campbell’s Tavern.

A family trip to Williamsburg and Washington, D.C., was documented in the childhood scrapbook of Deborah Nickles circa 1952. Deborah saved restaurant placemats, soap wrappers, hotel postcards, menus, maps, and brochures and annotated each page with her impressions of each place. Under her postcard of the Public Gaol she noted “That’s where Holly put me in the stocks,” while next to the menu for the King’s Arms, she declared it “a very nice place where you get waited on hand and foot.” Her family stayed at the Pocahontas Motor Lodge on Route 31 “8 blocks from [the] Colonial Capitol.”

The Elizabeth Cullinane Photo Album Collection is a testament to one individual’s decades-long fascination with Colonial Williamsburg. After an initial visit in the 1950s, Mrs. Cullinane, a Virginia resident, continued to make regular trips to Williamsburg and began assembling albums to document her favorite features. Her daughter, Susan Lee noted, “It was truly remarkable what she accomplished with a Kodak pocket camera and a manual typewriter.”

Tourist Homes & Wartime Lodging

Alongside the Williamsburg Inn and Lodge opened by Colonial Williamsburg in the late 1930s, a few other small hotel properties existed in Williamsburg, such as Topping’s Tourist Inn and the Tioga Motor Court. Between the 1930s and 1950s, privately-operated guest houses throughout the city of Williamsburg provided one of the main supplemental lodging options for visitors to Colonial Williamsburg. Residents offered room and board at reasonable rates to out-of-town guests. A map dating to 1940 showing the locations of these boarding houses reveals that Williamsburg had over sixty guest houses in operation. Lawson’s Tourist Home, a three-story brick home on Richmond Road, served as one of the largest such establishments, offering ten guest rooms and five bathrooms. Tourists could also find room and board at a few private residences within the Historic Area. Cora and Estelle Smith, whose family signed a life tenancy agreement with the Williamsburg Restoration allowing them to continue to reside in their family residence, the Thomas Everard House, regularly welcomed boarders to their home, giving them a unique opportunity to stay right on Palace Green. The correspondence exchanged between Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin and the Smith sisters documents their interest in obtaining referrals for boarders.

World War II brought a huge influx of soldiers, government officials, and their family members into the region due to military installations at Camp Peary, Fort Eustis, and the Naval Mine Depot. The Williamsburg Inn closed to travelers and became a non-profit residence for Army and Navy officers and their wives at a rate of $3.50 per night, while the Williamsburg Lodge, Brick House Tavern, and Market Square Tavern provided housing for weekend guests, such as family members or spouses on short visits. Many more local families opened their own homes and rented rooms as the town experienced a three hundred percent increase in private room rentals.

The Green-Book

Colonial Williamsburg welcomed visitors of all races to tour the Historic Area. However, due to state-enforced segregation laws, early Black visitors to Williamsburg faced many dining and lodging challenges and had to rely upon a network of Black-owned guest houses and restaurants to meet their needs for accommodations and meals. The Negro Motorist Green-Book, a travel guidebook for Black tourists first published by Victor H. Green in 1936 and thereafter annually until 1967, listed lodgings, restaurants, bars, and gas stations where Black motorists could expect a welcoming atmosphere and services for their needs during trips. Many of the businesses listed were owned and operated by Black residents and thus could direct Black travelers to other necessities during their visit, such as nightclubs, barber and beauty parlors, drug stores, and churches.

Black guests to Williamsburg often stayed at the Baker Tourist Home located at 419 Nicholson Street and operated by Willie and Clara Baker. The Hillside Café and Wallace and Cook’s Beer Garden, located off Nicholson Street on Raleigh Lane, offered an early venue for Black tourists and other visitors, such as chauffeurs and bus drivers, to gather for meals and nightlife. Visitors could also attend movie screenings held in the all-Black Bruton Heights School auditorium. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited racial segregation in hotels, restaurants, and theaters, Black travelers had more lodging and dining options along their routes and The Green-Book became obsolete.

Williamsburg Restaurants

Since its inception, Colonial Williamsburg has had a variety of dining establishments around its perimeter to cater to the needs of tourists, students, and residents. The era of small cafes and lunchrooms up and down Duke of Gloucester Street came to an end as Williamsburg’s Restoration commenced in the late 1920s. Restaurants became more concentrated in the Business Block area at the west end of Duke of Gloucester Street, adjacent to the College of William & Mary. Entrepreneurs also opened a few beyond the east boundary of the Historic Area near York and Page Streets.

The Greek community has always had a strong presence in the Williamsburg restaurant business. Nick and Angelo Costas established the Norfolk Restaurant on what is today the south side of Merchants Square in 1919. When the building was demolished to allow for construction of Merchants Square, Angelo Costas partnered with Tom Baltas to open the Capitol Restaurant in 1932, located in the middle of the south side of the Business Block on the site of today’s Scotland House. Their establishment became known as the “Middle Greeks.” On the north side of the Business Block, another restaurant, the Colonial Luncheonette, operated by newcomer Steve Sacalis, received the nickname the “Corner Greeks,” since it was located at the corner of the building complex that today houses the Precious Gem.

The Stringfellow Building, today the site of Brick and Vine, housed a succession of well-known restaurant chains. The first, the Harvey House, opened on September 24, 1948, and closed after a brief run in March 1949. Inspired by the Jimmy Stewart movie Harvey, the restaurant décor included a whimsical rabbit logo and offered a modern lunch counter with soda fountain favorites. Howard Johnson’s restaurant occupied the same space from the 1950s until the 1970s and many students and residents have fond memories of stopping there to sample their “18 delicious flavors of ice cream.”

The Richard Bland Tavern, today known as Wetherburn’s Tavern, offered another early dining option for tourists on Duke of Gloucester Street. Virginia Braithwaite Haughwout purchased the property in 1921 and expanded an existing tearoom into a restaurant and small inn. Early tourists to Williamsburg could enjoy a meal in the quaint Bull’s Head Room or stay overnight in one of the guest rooms.

Colonial Williamsburg Restaurants & Taverns

The first Restoration-operated restaurant, the Travis House, opened to the public on July 3, 1930. The Travis House stood for just over twenty years on Duke of Gloucester Street on the site formerly occupied by the Palace Theatre at the foot of Palace Green. Popular with tourists, Restoration and college employees, World War II servicemen and their families, and locals alike, the restaurant served fried chicken, Virginia ham, and other Southern dishes in a colonial setting.

After the opening of the Williamsburg Inn and Lodge in the late 1930s, dining options expanded for guests, with a wide variety of restaurant options from formal to casual. With a culinary team led by Chef Fred Crawford, the main dining room at the Inn featured Regency era décor and gourmet cuisine based upon traditional Southern favorites. The Lodge’s dining room seated up to three hundred guests and could be sub-divided into private dining areas, while the coffee shop featured lunch counter or cafeteria service with such options as an oyster bar.

The Motor House Cafeteria opened to visitors on April 1, 1957, as part of the newly designed travel center that encompassed the Visitor Center and Motor House. Designers conceived of the dining room as a large shed-type area with a dramatic picture window, a hung ceiling, and “ship’s carving” decorations on weathered wood. The cafeteria’s service area offered a new “hollow square” design that allowed customers to walk up to various stations to be served the items of interest rather than file through the entire cafeteria line.

The first tavern recreating a colonial dining experience for guests was Chowning’s Tavern, opened on August 15, 1941. It featured a tap room and bar in the eastern half of the building and a dining room in the western half. Beer and ale in pewter mugs and light refreshments were served, including oysters and clams on the half shell, Brunswick stew, sandwiches, and pecan pie. An arbor in the rear of the tavern provided shady outdoor seating for tavern guests. Overseen by its jovial host Julian Dickens, the tavern quickly became an evening entertainment hotspot with music and games.

As popular as the Travis House restaurant was, its dining spaces were less than ideal, and its kitchen space was cramped. This prompted the recreation of the King’s Arms Tavern to replace the Travis House in 1951. The seven dining rooms of the new tavern could seat around one hundred fifty guests at a time and a garden space allowed for additional outdoor seating options. The large modern kitchen situated in the tavern’s basement allowed for an expansion on the traditional Southern colonial menu offered by the Travis House which had been limited largely to Virginia ham and chicken dinners. In 1956, the reconstructed Mrs. Campbell’s Coffee House opened to the public for daily lunch and dinner presented in an eighteenth-century setting. Located on Waller Street behind the Capitol and built on the foundations of the original so popular with pre-Revolutionary legislators, the coffee house featured a seafood menu. Later that year, the name changed from Mrs. Campbell’s Coffee House to Christiana Campbell’s Tavern, the name by which it is known today.. Visual Resources.

Recreation

For guests staying overnight, Colonial Williamsburg developed an array of recreational activities to complement the educational tours in the Historic Area. This led Colonial Williamsburg to evolve into not only a museum destination, but also a popular resort facility. Initially, the Williamsburg Inn and the Williamsburg Lodge shared such amenities as a swimming pool, tennis courts, and a croquet green. A nine-hole golf course, designed by Fred Findlay, and clubhouse constructed in 1947 enhanced recreational options at the Inn and Lodge. Bicycling also offered early guests an opportunity to explore the horticultural features of the hotel grounds and the surrounding community. Movies at the Williamsburg Theatre on Merchants Square, musical concerts at the Governor’s Palace, and tavern performers at Chowning’s Tavern served as evening entertainment options. During World War II, the hotel properties and recreational activities provided a haven for soldiers, their families, and government officials to rest and decompress from the stresses and uncertainties of war during weekend leave. Colonial Williamsburg President Kenneth Chorley noted “Everyone who works requires rest and change. Even the military authorities insist on furlough. Travel restores health, rekindles enthusiasm, and improves efficiency by eliminating mental and physical fog which can cripple war efforts.”

Between the 1950s and 1970s, Colonial Williamsburg undertook significant expansion of its resort amenities to encourage tourists to stay in Williamsburg for several days. Designers strove to create “an enclave of serenity” at the Williamsburg Inn complex. The Golden Horseshoe Golf Course, a championship 18-hole course designed by Robert Trent Jones, opened in 1963, along with an enlarged clubhouse and restaurant overlooking a pond and the eighteenth hole. The 1960s also brought the addition of a second swimming pool west of the original east pool and the construction of a lawn bowling green. A new Tennis Shop and additional tennis courts further expanded sports facilities in 1976. At the Williamsburg Motor House, opened in 1957, guests could enjoy a large swimming pool surrounded by lounge chairs and a playground area for children. Additions to the wooded grounds in following decades included a putting green in 1980 and horseshoe pits, badminton, and shuffleboard courts. The Williamsburg Lodge opened the Tazewell Club Fitness Center in 1988 to provide its guests with an indoor swimming pool, exercise room, sauna, and whirlpool. Today, many of these amenities are combined for hotel guests at the Spa of Colonial Williamsburg which opened in 2007 and offers both fitness facilities and classes and rejuvenating treatments such as massages, facials, steam rooms, and whirlpools.