A gift of history, Cookie Cutters

At one time, John and I owned the Yadkin Valley Hotel in East Bend. We loved the old building! A contractor told us the old hotel, built in 1895, had strong bones and could survive many more years.

Study told us the important influence this Virginia family had to the development of the East Bend Community. Two of the Morse girls became dentists, another a business major and brother, Duke became a dentist. Mother Annie Laurie had a tobacco sack company, affording women in the town the opportunity to earn extra money. Over the years the family ran a store, the post office and a cannery business in the basement along with a nearby tobacco factory and farm.

When Shannon Zachary Adams emailed and asked if we would like something from the hotel’s auction, we were excited. Memories flooded back of sweeping, painting, cleaning, mowing and even decorating the huge glass display windows facing Main Street for Christmas.

We went through the process of having the building listed in the National Register of Historic Places. But we could not raise the massive amount of money to do all the needed repairs to restore the building to a hotel. She still sits deeply in our hearts and often wonder how she would be in 2023, if the building hadn’t been forced into a premature demise.

The cookie cutters Shannon gave us are a star, a heart and I would guess a flower. Notice there are no handles!

Over the years people have been so kind to share photos and objects from East Bend’s past with us.

Thank you, Shannon, we’re displaying them along side the photos and mem orabilia from the hotel at our store at 413 Cherry Street, East Bend. There is no charge to visit the displays.