By the mid-1800s, the village of Mons, which is Latin for mountain, had grown up around the Peaks of Otter. There was a church, a school, two mills, and a hotel. The small community provided services to tourists who had discovered the Peaks of Otter as a prime destination resort. This pattern of vacationing in the southern mountains continued into the automobile era and helped fuel the dreams of the Blue Ridge Parkway. A short hike around Abbott Lake takes you to Polly Woods Ordinary, a lodge providing the "ordinary" needs of travelers to the Peaks as early as the 1830s.