Narrator: The most famous resort was White Sulphur Springs in the Greenbrier Valley.

Elegant cottages fanned out in rows, including Paradise Row for newlyweds and Wolf Row for bachelors.

“White Sulphur has something imminently aristocratic about it. You feel that you are with your fellows here.” —John H. B. Latrobe

Opposite the cottages sat the massive, grand central hotel. Four hundred feet long, known to patrons as simply "The White."

"If I can't go to The White as I am accustomed to," declared a Richmond judge, "I'll just stay home and die."

It was the closest thing the Old South had to a summer capital.

Robert Conte: "The power in the Congress was in southern hands, in southern congressmen, and the presidents were coming to talk to the congressmen and meet them on their own turf. So, Andrew Jackson, Tyler, Van Buren, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, these are all pre-war presidents who came here, and you could meet who you needed to meet, sort of a concentration of power and money but in a resort atmosphere."

The hotel dining room seated 1,200 guests. Many brought their own slaves to serve them. Others relied on slaves owned by the hotel.

“If you have no servant, you must bribe one of those attached to the place, or you run the risk of getting little or nothing. Bribe high and you live high. Avoid bribery and you starve.” —John H. B. Latrobe