Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center

In 1882, the Norfolk and Western Railway chose the small town of Big Lick as the site of its corporate headquarters and railroad shops, bringing over a thousand workers to what would become Roanoke. The company wanted a hotel that would impress investors arriving by train, so Philadelphia architect George T. Pearson designed a Tudor Revival structure that opened Christmas Day, 1882. It has burned, been rebuilt, and outlasted every version of itself — the oldest surviving piece is a 1931 wing at the rear. The central wing standing today, with its tower and lobby, was completed in 1938, designed by Knut W. Lind of George B. Post and Sons, a New York firm known for hotel work across the country. In 1989, Norfolk Southern deeded the building to Virginia Tech for $65,000 and closed it. The "Renew Roanoke" campaign launched in 1992 to raise enough money to reopen it, with a deadline of December 31. By late fall the campaign was still $6 million short. A Christmas-time fundraiser raised $5.006 million, and Norfolk Southern donated an additional $2 million — thirty times what it had received for the property. The hotel was remodeled at a cost of $28 million, a $13 million conference center was built adjacent, and a pedestrian bridge was constructed over the railroad tracks to link the complex to downtown. It reopened April 3, 1995. In 1918, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs stopped here during one of their camping trips through the South. Mahalia Jackson was the first Black guest in 1964. The peanut soup in the Regency Room has been served since the 1940s. The lobby and the Regency Room are open to non-guests, and the pedestrian bridge from downtown across the tracks is the most photographed approach in the valley. Virginia Tech still owns it. Hilton operates it under the Curio Collection brand.