Manufacturer: Syracuse China
User: Hotel Roanoke
Pattern: Coach and Four, underglaze P-79 with custom black rim
Date of plate: 1921

 

Notes: Railroad magnate Frederick J. Kimball chose Roanoke, then known as Big Lick, Va., as the site of a railroad junction and a major city. After combining two of his railroads into the Norfolk and Western Railway, Kimball built the wooden hotel in 1882 with less than three dozen rooms, remodeling and adding on as the need arose. By 1931, even in the midst of the Depression, the railroad added a wing with 75 rooms, 60-car garage, circulating ice water, and he spent $225,000 on the addition. Over the years, the hotel was completed as we know it today, with its Tudor facade, and more than 400 guest rooms.

Norfolk Southern Corporation closed the hotel it had owned and operated for 107 years in 1989 and gave it to the Virginia Tech Real Estate Foundation. The hotel was closed for four years, then underwent a major restoration, reopening in 1995 as the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center. Further information can be found here: http://hotelroanoke.com.

White body, stock stagecoach and horses and inn and passengers hand painted multicolored design, custom black rim design. Only this color scheme with the black border was used by Hotel Roanoke. Never backstamped with hotel name.

For related info:
Roanoke Hotel by Syracuse China
Roanoke Hotel 3 by Syracuse China
Coach and Four by Syracuse China

Photo contributed by Susan Phillip