Colonial Hotel

Photographed by Mark Parker, July 6, 2026

1. Colonial Hotel Marker

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The Dotson Hotel burned in 1909, and it became apparent to local citizens

Photographed by Mark Parker, July 6, 2026

2. Colonial Hotel Marker at the main entrance to The Inn at Wise

that a new hotel needed to be built immediately if Wise was to functton as the county seat and grow as a regional commercial center. A group of businessmen founded the Wise Hotel Corporation and purchased lots on the south skie of Main Street for a new hotel. The corporation was initially headed by future Virginia governor George C. Peery. In December 1909, the corporation contracted with buiider D. J. Phipps to build the 22-room hotel for a cost of $17,000. The building was furnished in July 1910. The corporation liquidated its holdings a year later, however, in order to satisfy a builder's lien for the unpaid portion of the construction cost. Oscar M. Vicars, cofounder of the Glamorgan Coal Company and son-in-law of the former proprietor of the Dotson Hotel (Henderson Dotson) purchased the new hotel at auction for $8,200.

The hotel changed hands several times during the next decade and a half. In 1925 G. C. Wharton purchased it for $20,000. His widow sold the hotel to Herbert Thompson, president of the Red Ash Pocahontas Coal Company. Thompson thoroughly redecorated and modernized the hotel, changing its name to The inn at Wise Courthouse.

Photographed by Mark Parker, July 6, 2026

3. The Inn at Wise, formerly Colonial Inn

Among other alterations, Thompson incorporated the adjacent commercial buiiding into the hotel and apparently converted the original kitchen into the present Gray Room. He added a guest room in the pediment of the portico, added a partition on the south side of the lobby, and created the Pine Room and the basement restaurant He decorated the hotel with an eclectic collection of art and antiques, much of which remains in the hotel today. Duncan Hines, hotel and restaurant critic, praised the remodeled hotel, and it became known for its food and service.

During all the years of its existence the hotel retained its importance as a center for the community. One Wise resident recalls the movies shown in the dining room in the 1910s, the dances with jazz bands in the 1920s, and the visits of national and international reporters to cover the sensational Edith Maxwell murder trial. In 1954, the idea of Clinch Valley College was conceived at the hotel when a local resident, in a chance meeting with a University of Virginia official, pressed for the University to open a division in Wise. The hotel has served as the site of many of the county's

Photographed by Mark Parker, July 6, 2026

4. The Inn at Wise Lobby

wedding receptions, bridge parties, civic meetings, poiitical gatherings and Sunday dinners over the past eighty years, reinforcing its position as one of Wise County's most significant buildings. The structure functioned as an unofficial annex to the courthouse, used by lawyers and politicians as well as salesmen and other travellers.

Also known as the Inn at Wise Courthouse, the Colonial Hotel was erected in 1910 on a site that had been used for hotel purposes since just after the Civil War. In the tradition of inns and taverns in courthouse towns since colonial times, the hotel served those having business with the Wise County court. When its predecessor, the Dotson Hotel, burned in 1909, a group of local businessmen founded the Wise Hotel Corporation and purchased the site for a new hotel. The corporation was initially headed by future Virginia governor,

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George C. Peery. A local builder, D. J. Phipps, was awarded the contract to erect the twenty-two-room structure. Employing a modified Colonial Revival style, this prominent local landmark was reopened near the end of the 20th century as a hotel and restaurant, renamed the Inn at Wise Courthouse.