Local author and historian Tom Perry’s latest book, “White Sulphur Springs North Carolina: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” is set to be released on Sunday, May 19 during his Tom Talks History event at the Ararat Ruritan Club at 2 p.m.
Perry said the book is about the history of the White Sulphur Springs on Riverside Drive, Highway 104, just north of Mount Airy, NC.
The approximately 100-page book is in chronological order and will cost around $10.
“It starts during the 1800s and comes up to today. It ends with the” current wedding venue site. “But most of it’s the history of who owned it and who visited and stories about everything from murders to ghosts to people coming and drinking the water,” he said.
Perry said he saw a reference that Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s mother, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, wrote that when the family was living at the Laurel Hill Farm, or the current J.E.B Stuart Birthplace, that people were coming to White Sulphur Springs to “take the waters” before the Civil War.
“You know, they’d drink all this old sulphur water thinking it would cure everything, and over the years the hotel developed. It had multiple owners and it got bigger and bigger, and by the time that it was in its heyday in the early 1900s, it was an almost 200-room resort hotel,” he said.
Perry added he believes Patrick Springs was like the White Sulphur Springs because it turned into a resort-type place where people could come and drink the water.
“People back in the 1800s thought that by drinking water like this it would cure all kinds of things. Probably the most famous guy I know is Stonewall Jackson, he really believed in taking the waters before the Civil War. He was notorious for” it, he said.
Over the years, Perry said the spring had multiple owners.
“It grew, and then they’d have a fire, and it would burn down, and then they’d have to build it up again,” he said.
While people don’t think of Mount Airy as being a resort area, Perry said it boasted multiple hotels and multiple springs that were tourist destinations.
“It started attracting actresses and millionaires, and the book talks a little bit about some of the famous people,” he said. “Supposedly, there was a woman who got murdered in the hotel and her ghost haunted it for years, I mean you hear all kinds of stuff like that.”
The spring’s last resort eventually burnt down around 1960. Perry said by then it was primarily used as a chicken coop.
“They kept chickens in it, so it became the world’s largest chicken fire I guess,” he said with a laugh.
Perry believes some of the people who own it also own the 13 Bones restaurant in Mount Airy.
“They’ve turned it kind of into a wedding site and they have cabins, and you can get married and have your pictures made and all that. I think they only let tourists come out there on Mondays – I believe is their rule,” he said.
The rest of the time, Perry said the site can be rented for events like concerts and weddings, and of course, visitors can also still drink the Sulphur water.
“The spring is still there, and you can go down there and have you a big gulp. It (water) smells like rotten eggs, but I’d always heard if you get some and leave it out overnight the smell would go away and that the water is pretty good. The smell would really turn you off when you first get around it,” he said, chuckling.
Perry added postcards of White Sulphur Springs can still be found in Mount Airy.
While the idea for the book started about a decade ago, Perry said he never got around to finishing it until now.
“It really came about because of the Dinky Railroad. The hotel was right on the Dinky Railroad, so a lot of people would ride up the railroad to stay at the hotel,” he said.
Perry chose the hotel as a book topic because he likes history that’s along the Virginia-North Carolina line.
The Tom Talks History program helps raise money for the Perry Family Scholarship Fund, which he started in honor of his late parents. Scholarships are awarded annually.
Unlike past years, the event will be held on a Sunday afternoon instead of on a Saturday.
We’re “thinking that maybe Sunday afternoon, people will have more time for that sort of thing. The Ararat Ruritan Club supports me in this, and allows me to use their facility,” he said.
Perry estimates 40 to 50 typically show up for the event.
Perry said this is the first of three different programs that will be held this year to benefit the scholarship:
Beverly Belcher Woody, the author of the “Patrick Pioneers” series in the Enterprise will hold a program on July 28.
On September 29, Perry will hold a program about J.E.B. Stuart and his brothers, William Alexander Stuart and John Dabney Stuart, in the Civil War. This will be the weekend before the Civil War Encampment at Laurel Hill on October 5-6.
The book will be available on Amazon, select book racks in the county, and on Perry’s website, https://laurel-hill-publishing-llc.square.site.
