The Terminal Hotel

The Terminal Hotel stood on this spot with views of the Mattaponi, Pamunkey, and York Rivers. A massive five-story Victorian building with pointed towers on each corner, it had 200 guest rooms, hundreds of windows, measured 40 X 126 with a 38 X 100 wing, and cost $28,000 to build in 1887. It was named for its connection to the Richmond and West Point Terminal Railway and Warehouse Company, whose first president in March 1880 was William Clyde, a dominant figure in West Point shipping. In 1887, Richmond railroad executive James Dooley became president of the Terminal Company and of its sister company, the Richmond and West Point Land, Navigation and Improvement Company, and these companies had the hotel built. Dooley, along with William Clyde, Thomas Logan, and James Bryan, was a key figure in the enterprise, and he is also remembered for building Maymont in Richmond. The hotel became insolvent in 1892 and was auctioned, with Dooley purchasing it for $9,000 and taking ownership. After also buying other West Point property, he employed various managers, and the hotel prospered for the next 20 years as daily trains from Richmond and ships from Baltimore brought visitors seeking sun, water, and good food. Before Prohibition, West Point was one of the few Virginia resort areas that served alcohol. Among the most successful managers Dooley hired were George E. Guvernator and his wife, who took over management in 1906 and also managed the nearby Beach Park Hotel. The Terminal Hotel survived the great West Point fire of 1903, which destroyed much of downtown, and also survived a 1910 fire that destroyed the Beach Park Hotel. It did not survive the outlawing of alcohol sales in West Point in 1914, and it then became a boarding house. On July 2, 1926, a fire that began in the basement destroyed the hotel, and it is believed the blaze was caused by the explosion of a still.

West Point, Virginia · United States