The Princess Anne Hotel, Virginia Beach, VA

An apparently unrecorded 1893 edition of this amply illustrated guide to Virginia Beach's Princess Anne Hotel and vicinity. It includes several train itineraries, descriptions of the resort, and brief notes on the various amusements of its surroundings. The hotel accommodated four hundred guests, boasted electric lights and bells, and a variety of indoor games and entertainments. The hotel was built after a railway from Norfolk provided easy access to the oceanfront in the early 1880s, and by 1888 it had become a "Grand Hotel, like no other" ("The Princess Anne"). It is advertised here for its "Absolute Healthfulness," "Superior Accommodations," "unsurpassed Cuisine," and "Perfect Service," and the area is later noted for "notably free from mosquitos." According to Dr. A. Y. P. Garnett, former president of the American Medical Association, Virginia Beach was endowed with "supreme attributes of sanitary power." Not so healthfully, it burned down in 1907, and the site was later purchased by the military and used as a strategic defense point during World War I.

REFERENCES: "The Princess Anne Hotel: There Was No Finer Place, Anywhere," The Historical Marker Database online.