A Guest Home of Southern Charm, Raleigh, N.C.
This week for Flashback Friday we’re publishing six postcards depicting various ‘tourist homes’ which once lined US Route 1 (Wake Forest Rd./Person St.) through Raleigh. As Raleigh is about halfway between New York and Florida, our city became a popular overnight stop-over for the traveling public.
A GUEST HOME OF SOUTHERN CHARM
Mrs. L.H. McKinney, Hostess
Insulated — Steam Heat — Garage
Twelve blocks from Capitol
Telephone 2942
1209 Wake Forest Road (US 1) North Side
Raleigh, North Carolina
A ‘tourist home’ was what we would call a bed and breakfast today. Private homes were opened to travelers with bed and meals being provided. In 1926Â U.S. Route 1 was established as the major north-south traffic artery through North Carolina. Soon afterward the growing popularity of the automobile in the 1930s and ’40s resulted in increased automobile traffic, foreshadowing the decline of train travel by the American public. By the early 1950s the classic American ‘motel’ had emerged on the scene, and soon virtually replaced the tourist home as the favored overnight stop-over for travelers.
Our featured postcard this week was mailed in 1939 by ‘Ma & Pa’ to family back home in Ottawa. Looks like they were headed to Jacksonville, Florida — a long, long way from Canada.
We arrived here this afternoon. had a lovely trip so far. weather just lovely. Bright and warm. leave for Jacksonville in morning. all well and feeling good. Ma & Pa
Below we present five additional postcards depicting other tourist homes along the Wake Forest Rd./Person St. corridor. All but one of these buildings are still standing today — and one of them, while not strictly a ‘tourist home’ these days, still takes in lodgers. Perhaps some of our Goodnight Raleigh readers might know which one that is.
Yellow Gables
Tour Inn
Tourist Rest
The Restover
Wooten’s Hometel
“Flashback Friday†is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week-end treat!
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS feed
Subscribe to posts by Email
Sign up for the Newsletter
10/21/2011
Just for fun, here are Google Street Views of all the above addresses, in order. Hope they work.
http://g.co/maps/y498z
http://g.co/maps/86954
http://g.co/maps/5yy5h
http://g.co/maps/8am2j
http://g.co/maps/b83sw
http://g.co/maps/p7kzw
10/21/2011
The Yellow Gables is now Gables Motor Lodge. I’m guessing they changed the name in the 50s or 60s?
I always thought the sign was just left over…didn’t realize they might still be open for business?
I use to think it was a funny place for such an establishment until I found out that that road was US 1. Now it makes perfect sense. (Probably explains the Krispy Kreme location too.)
10/23/2011
Great post, Karl. Good to see all those structures still standing.
10/24/2011
Wooten’s Hometel later moved to Highway 1 (now 1A) in Wake Forest – I have several old postcards that show it in its new location. The building is still standing, and I think is still an inn of some sort.
10/25/2011
NCSU — Thanks for posting the links. The site of Wooten’s was actually down the street at the corner of Person and Pace. A nondescript bank building sits there today. For some reason the addresses in the 500 block of N. Person were shuffled around several times in the early 20th century — go figure. ;)
RalRob — In the early ’60s I attended nearby Emma Conn School. I was a patrol boy back then, and the coveted post among our squad was the intersection of Wake Forest Rd. and Frank St. As Wake Forest was still part of US 1 then, there was quite a bit of heavy transport truck traffic through there. You could jerk your arm up and down as a big rig passed by, and if you were lucky, the driver would give a short blast on the horn mounted on the roof of truck cabin. We loved it!
I remember the metal and neon sign out front of Yellow Gables still said ‘Yellow Gables’ then, and the porch and dormer gables were painted a bright yellow.
IFGD — Thanks! Too bad we lost the ‘Hometel’ about 1970.
David — Thanks for the follow-up on Wooten’s Hometel — I love that name! If you send us a scan of one of your postcards, we’ll publish it here.
10/27/2011
Thank so much for these! I look forward to seeing what you’ve discovered.
Do you have any idea when the photos for the postcards would have been taken? I’m especially interested in the Tour Inn.
06/28/2012
Raleigh Boy, this post really brings back important (and old) memories for me. I was also a school patrol boy, and I also really enjoyed being stationed at Old Wake Forest Road and Frank Street, because so much more happened there than at the other patrol boy stations. In addition, the Tourist Homes were a real curiousity for this then 11 year old. Who stayed there; what brought them to those homes; and so on? So many questions. Thanks so much for posting this.
06/29/2012
Bob T — Happy to know somebody else fondly remembers the outpost at Wake Forest and Frank. Those were the days.
04/28/2021
Who are the original owners of the Wootens Hometel?