PENCE SPRINGS W.Va. (Hinton News) – I have talked about the Pence Springs Hotel in a few of my previous pieces so far, so I won’t delve too far into its long and vast history. The first hotel was a huge, stately wood frame structure that sprawled out in different directions.
Fire broke out on the third floor of the tower part of the main building early one morning (I have read different dates, but the consensus is 1912). There was no fire department at that time, and the only hope was to form a bucket brigade to the river, which was roughly 1/2 of a mile away over rough terrain.
It wasn’t long until the people in the brigade realized it was a failed attempt and turned their attention to saving items from the hotel in which the fire was spreading rapidly. It was so rushed that many of the items were broken or damaged while trying to rescue them.
It should be noted that the Pence Springs Hotel sat in a different location originally. At that time, it sat on the hill to the right of the Pence Springs Flea Market. The large two-story house you see on the hill beside Route 3 was Andrew Pence’s home. The first hotel sat in the field behind it.
Andrew Pence faced several devastating fires at this period in his life. The house there now was built in 1913, when his home burned in 1911. He lived in the hotel until it burned in 1912, at which point he turned his attention to constructing a new home for himself and his family.
He then commenced the rebuilding of the Pence Springs Hotel in 1914. Construction went well, and the building came up at a fast rate until construction was virtually discontinued due to a low workforce during the height of World War I.
Construction was later completed in 1918. This photo you see here was taken during the slow work that occurred during the war. The building shell itself was almost complete but lacked a lot of the finishing touches like porch banisters, window dressing, doors and trim.
While growing up as a child and up through my young adulthood, I spent a lot of time sitting in my dear late friend Alvin Garten’s yard discussing local history with him on summer evenings. He told me Zack Hamm, a name that many of the old timers in Summers County have either heard of or knew.
Zack often told the story that he was in school in the one-room Buffalo School in Pence Springs the morning the hotel was destroyed by fire. The teacher let the children out of school, and they went outside under the large oak tree to watch the large commotion. It should be noted that this tree stood until it was just cut by my father this year.
Another story Alvin told me was that Zack worked during the construction of the current hotel by hauling brick from the brickyard in Pence Springs proper for the foundation of the hotel building. That the exterior bricks you see were shipped in by rail. Zack worked to unload the brick from train cars and then haul them to the construction site.
A little funny, unrelated story about Zack was he and my Great Grandfather O.D. Thompson were hunting buddies. They came in one morning after “running” their dogs at about 4 a.m. Hungry, they found what they thought was a roast that Alme, Zack’s wife, had been cooking on the wood stove.
They grabbed two plates and grabbed a “taste” of the roast. Before long, the pot was empty! They went to the living room, sat on the sofa and loafed around till Alme woke up. She walked into the kitchen, stopped and looked at the stove.
Before she could say anything, Zack and O.D. said, “That was some good roast you were afixin Alme!” She turned to look at them and said, “You fools, that was a skunk I was rendering down for the oil. You two ate skunk last night!”
Granddad never told me what his father or Zack did after that, but I can just imagine. I digress. The Pence Springs Hotel just this week came up for sale by FoxFire Realty. Let’s hope it gets another visionary like Ashby Berkley to breathe life into it once again.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
