Editing Webster Springs, West Virginia (section)

===Webster Springs Hotel===
In 1897, [[United States Senate|Senator]] [[Johnson N. Camden|Johnson Newlon Camden]] built the Webster Springs Hotel, a 265-room hotel of [[Victorian architecture|Victorian style architecture]].<ref name="Hotel">{{cite book |last=Romano |first=Mark |title=The Webster Springs Hotel and Historic Springs, WV: The Summer Resort Center |edition=Limited Edition First |pages=78–96 |chapter="The Historic Springs" |publisher=Mark Romano |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-9720212-6-5 }}</ref> It was larger than [[The Greenbrier]] Hotel, built in 1913 in [[White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia|White Sulfur Springs]], which only has 250 rooms.<ref name="Hotel" /> The hotel contained a tennis court, horse stables, garden, bowling alley, power plant, and [[Russia]]n and [[Victorian Turkish baths]],<ref name="Hotel" /> where visitors could enjoy the "medicinal" qualities of its salt sulfur waters. The hotel was also the largest wood-frame hotel in West Virginia.<ref name="Largest">{{cite book |last=Romano |first=Mark |title=The Webster Springs Hotel and Historic Springs, WV: The Summer Resort Center (Interview with Mae R. Cogar) |edition=Limited Edition First |page=97 |chapter="The Historic Springs" |publisher=Mark Romano |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-9720212-6-5 }}</ref>

When first built, the hotel was a three-story dark colored building. After it was completed, construction began on a new, much larger section of the hotel, adding more rooms, and a new exterior color, white. The new section of the hotel contained up-to-date Turkish bath equipment, where guests could have a sulfur water bath.<ref name="Hotel" /> For many years, filled to capacity by guests and a greatly increased overflow which necessitated the building of smaller hotels in the town.<ref name="Hotel" /> The hotel also raised its own cattle and provided some of its own food and milk.<ref name="Hotel" /> The hotel's ice house, according to ''Elizah Hedding Gillespie, His Ancestors, Descendants and Their Families'', was capable of holding 150 [[ton]]s of ice.<ref name="Hotel" /> The hotel was heated by steam.<ref name="Hotel" />

[[File:Webster Springs WV Hotel from Book of the Royal Blue April 1909 Vol 12 No 07 Page 14.jpg|thumb|left|Webster Springs Hotel, circa 1909]]
In 1903, Colonel McGraw purchased the hotel and expanded it by 115 rooms, completed in the spring of 1904.<ref name="Hotel" /> Of the 89 "non-guest" rooms in the new section, 40 were for salt sulfur baths, which took up the entire first floor of one wing.<ref name="Hotel" /> The entire southern wing of the hotel was given to bath rooms, including; "the plunge," Turkish, Russian, Needle, Shower, and Steam baths. Of which they were offered in both fresh and salt-sulfur water.<ref name="Hotel" />

On the interior, it contained stuffed [[bear]]s, [[elk]]s, and other wildlife of the local county in realistic poses.<ref name="Hotel" />

At the height of its popularity, the hotel played host to such guests as Senators [[Thomas Kearns]] ([[Utah]]), [[Henry G. Davis]] (West Virginia), his son-in-law, [[Stephen Benton Elkins]] (West Virginia), and Camden himself.

On the night of July 20, 1925, the hotel caught fire and was burned to the ground, being completely destroyed.<ref name="Hotel" /> Flames could be seen as far as one mile away, as well, the sky was seen as a bright red color, up to 19 miles away, in [[Camden-on-Gauley, West Virginia|Camden-on-Gauley]].<ref name="Hotel" />

[[File:Webster Springs West Virginia.jpg|thumb|280px|Main Street ([[West Virginia Route 15]]) in Webster Springs in 2007, from Court Square.]]
[[File:Webster County Courthouse West Virginia.jpg|thumb|280px|Front of the Webster County Courthouse in 2007]]