Foster Falls Hotel was built in 1887 by the Foster Falls Mining and Manufacturing Co. as the centerpiece of a small, thriving mining community. It served as a meeting hall, post office, commissary, and boarding house for employees of the mining industry. After the mining operation was sold in 1889 to the Virginia Iron Coal and Coke Co., the hotel remained the community's centerpiece. In 1919, when VIC ended operations at Foster Falls, the hotel was sold for one dollar to the Abingdon Presbytery and converted into a girls industrial school, where young ladies learned homemaking along with school subjects and Bible studies. In 1938, a two story brick cottage for boys was built beside the original structure, and the school became a coed orphanage. Since 1962, the hotel has stood vacant, linking Foster Falls's mining past with its later role near a park and its visitors.