Today, there are plenty of unique places to stay in Winston-Salem. At the turn of the 20th century, tourism was just taking off, which meant visitors drawn to the towns of Winston and Salem needed somewhere to enjoy the spoils of the area's recent economic boom.

Some of the cities' greatest industrialists like RJ Reynolds and PH Hanes formed the West End Hotel and Land Company. Its goal? To build a resort city complete with a grand hotel on one of the highest elevations in Winston.

The company bought the land on West Fourth Street (near what is now Glade Street) and started construction on the Hotel Zinzendorf. Sources disagree on whether construction started in 1890 or 1891, but the four-story hotel opened to visitors in May 1892. The lavish spot was as long as a football field and was regarded as the finest in the South.

But the splendor of the Zinzendorf wasn't to last. Just months later on Thanksgiving morning, Nov. 24, a fire started in the hotel laundry and spread to the dining hall. When fire crews from Winston and Salem arrived, they found hydrants had insufficient water pressure to fight the fire. Everyone inside made it out safely, but the hotel — with its wood furnishings and cedar shingles — succumbed to the flames in just two hours.

A crowd gathered to watch the hotel go up in smoke. | Photo courtesy of Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection via Digital Forsyth

Insurance partially covered the loss but the economic depression of 1893 made securing funds for a rebuild difficult. West End Hotel and Land Company dissolved in 1905 but some of the shareholders formed Forsyth Hotel Corporation. It opened a six-story Zinzendorf Hotel on Sept. 28, 1906, this time on Main Street near Third Street. It operated until 1970 and was demolished the following year.

Today, a historic marker is all that remains of the original Hotel Zinzendorf. You can see it across from Grace Court.