Smithsonian Libraries

A Winter Resort from the Past

Each month this winter, we have featured a winter vacation related item.  Previous posts featured brochures about The Court Inn and Hampton Terrace.  Continuing with this theme, we are featuring a third brochure about a winter resort, a Laurel House of Lakewood Brochure.

 

Laurel House of Lakewood, Lakewood, NJ.  Brochure, ca. 1900, Laurel House of Lakewood.

 

Laurel House was located in Lakewood, New Jersey and was open from October until June making it a fall, winter, and spring resort.  Along with Laurel-in-the-Pines at Lakewood and the Waumbek and Cottages at Jefferson in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Laurel House at Lakewood was part of the Lakewood and Jefferson Resort System.

Situated in an area with a mild winter climate, the resort offered its guests outdoor recreational activities throughout the winter.  This included golfing, cycling, boating, and cross-country hunts.  Lakewood had several private clubs for outdoor sports and the clubs allowed resort guests to use the facilities during their stay.

Nearby were two lakes, Lake Carasaljo and Lake Manetta, available for boating and depending on the weather, skating and ice-boating.  A walk around Lake Carasaljo was described in the brochure as "one of the most charming walks in the vicinity."  There were gravel walkways with bridges as well as places to stop and rest along the way.

Located in an area with many pine trees, there were roads for driving, riding, or cycling through the pine forest as well as walks for those who preferred to enjoy the scenery on foot.

This Laurel House of Lakewood Brochure is located in the Trade Literature Collection at the National Museum of American History Library.  Take a look at the Galaxy of Images to see more pages from this brochure.

-Alexia MacClain

A Winter Holiday in 1905

Each month this winter, we are featuring a winter vacation related item.  In December, we featured a 1906 brochure about a winter resort in South Carolina called The Court Inn.  This month, we are featuring a 1905 Hampton Terrace Brochure.

Hampton Terrace, Augusta, GA.*  Hampton Terrace Brochure, 1905, Hampton Terrace.

Hampton Terrace was a winter resort located near the Savannah River in Augusta, Georgia.*  The hotel had three hundred rooms and accommodated up to five hundred guests.  The bedrooms at Hampton Terrace were "of generous size, amply furnished, having closets six feet square" and each room included a telephone capable of long distance calls.  There were six suites which included a parlor, dining room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom.  Connecting rooms were also available.

Those vacationing at the hotel could play golf on an eighteen-hole golf course, hunt, or fish in the nearby lakes and streams.  There was also a flower garden for guests to walk through.  For an extra cost, horses and vehicles were available from the stable.  To entertain guests inside the hotel, there was a dancing hall, sun parlors, billiard tables, and a music room with an orchestra.  Other activities included tennis, shuffleboard, and ping-pong.

Hampton Terrace Brochure is located in the Trade Literature Collection at the National Museum of American History Library.  Take a look at Galaxy of Images to see more from this brochure, including views of both the interior and exterior of Hampton Terrace.

Check back in February to read about another winter resort of the past!

-Alexia MacClain

*Based on the brochure, we thought Hampton Terrace was located in Augusta, Georgia, but after some research we're not quite sure (http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/picturingaugusta/aep028.php).  Do any of our readers know which state the resort really called home?  Was it Georgia or South Carolina?  (edited 1/19/2012)



A Winter Vacation of the Past

This past summer, we featured travel and vacation related items, including ones about express steamers, a beach hotel, and a lake resort.  Each month this winter, we will do the same.  But this time we will feature winter vacation related items.  This month, we are featuring a 1906 brochure about The Court Inn.

 

Court Inn, Camden, SC.  Brochure, 1906, The Court Inn.

 

The Court Inn was a winter resort located in Camden, South Carolina.  The resort, which accommodated about 200 guests, opened each year on Thanksgiving Day.  The 1906 Brochure described the resort as having "every modern comfort and convenience, including electric lights, steam heat and open fireplaces, call bells, and bath-rooms, both public and private."

The resort had a lot of outdoor activities for guests to enjoy.  In front of the hotel, there was a garden with flowers and shrubs.  A five hundred foot long arched evergreen walkway and the Grove of Towering Pines was also located on the grounds.  Other outdoor activities included fishing and boating at a nearby lake, playing polo, and playing golf at the nearby Sarsfield Golf Club.

This 1906 Brochure about The Court Inn can be found in the Trade Literature Collection at the National Museum of American History Library.  Take a look at the Galaxy of Images to see more pages from this brochure.

Check back in January and February to read about other winter vacation resorts of the past!

-Alexia MacClain

Flipping Through a Holiday Catalog from 1898

The holiday shopping season is just around the corner.  Have you ever wondered what toys or other items people bought as gifts in the past?  This catalog gives us a glimpse of what shoppers over a hundred years ago might have been buying.

Holiday Catalogue of H. S. Prutzman & Co. is from the holiday season of 1898.  This particular catalog seems to focus on large items.  It also has a mix of items for outdoor play, such as sleds, and items for indoor play, such as rocking horses and toy sweepers.

Pictured below is one of several pages showing different types of sleighs and sleds.  Shown on the right side of the page below is a sleigh with two plumes.  This particular sleigh included upholstered seats and was available in natural wood or painted white.  It was also available without the plumes.

H. S. Prutzman & Co., Altoona, PA.  Holiday Catalogue of H. S. Prutzman & Co., 1898, page 6, sleds.

Other items shown in the catalog include rocking horses, wagons, toy wheelbarrows, toy sweepers, tricycles, and velocipedes.  Even though the catalog does not include a lot of description to go along with the images, it still gives us an idea of what might have been on holiday shopping lists in the late nineteenth century.

Holiday Catalogue of H. S. Prutzman & Co. is located in the Trade Literature Collection at the National Museum of American History Library.  Take a look at Galaxy of Images to see more pages from this catalog.

-Alexia MacClain