Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Stanley and Terrie Howard
Taken: July 19, 2009
Caption: Pre-Park History
Additional Description: The first white men moved into the Table Rock area soon after the treaty with the Cherokees. The Keith and Sutherland families settled in the Oolenoy Valley at a place called Pumpkintown, this name alluding to the unusually large pumpkins grown there. There were no other permanent residents for many years, but many visitors were attracted to the area. William Sutherland and James Keith operated a wayside lodge for these visitors and around 1840 they constructed a hotel. The hotel prospered until the Civil War when few visitors came. It regained its prosperity toward the end of the century and E.Foster Keith started a new hotel in 1899 at the present site of the White Oaks Picnic Shelter. The first hotel was later destroyed and prior to 1920 the second hotel was moved into the Saluda Valley for use as a summer lodge. By the beginning of the twentieth century several families, mostly farmers, were living in the Table Rock area.
Submitted: July 24, 2009, by Stanley and Terrie Howard of Greer, South Carolina.
Database Locator Identification Number: p71592
File Size: 1.083 Megabytes

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