Nu-Wray Inn

Nu Wray Inn
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location:	Off US 19E, Burnsville, North Carolina
Coordinates:	35°54′59″N 82°17′58″W / 35.91639°N 82.29944°W / 35.91639; -82.29944Coordinates: 35°54′59″N 82°17′58″W / 35.91639°N 82.29944°W / 35.91639; -82.29944
Area:	0.7 acres (0.28 ha)
Built:	1833
Architectural style:	Colonial Revival
Governing body:	Private
NRHP Reference#:	82003535 [1]
Added to NRHP:	April 15, 1982

The Nu Wray Inn is an historic hotel in Burnsville, North Carolina. It was built in 1833 at the time Yancey County was formed and a year before Burnsville was established. It was originally built of logs and had eight bedrooms and a dining room and kitchen. ^[2] It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [1]

Thomas Wolfe spent the night there in 1929 when he was a witness at a murder trial in Burnsville. ^[3] Elvis Presley and William Sidney Porter (O. Henry) were also guests.^{[4] [5]}

It was owned by the same family for a century until the death of Wray family patriarch Rush Wray. ^[4]

Writing about the Inn in 1941 the journalist Jonathan W. Daniels said:

Everything is on the table in the Nu Wray Hotel at Burnsville. Nobody waits to give an order. They bring it in, three or four kinds of meat, all the vegetables of the whole mountain countryside. There are dishes of homemade jellies and preserves. The country ham is excellent. The stout tables do not groan but the stuffed guest rising sometimes does. It is country plenty, country cooked and country served, but in proof that the persisting homesickness for country eating is not entirely based on legend. ^[6]

External links

• Official website
• Pavement Plato Finds Food at Boarding House Superb

References

1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 
2. ^ Haas, Irvin (1985). America's historic inns & taverns. Hippocrene Books. p. 134. ISBN 978-0870520259. 
3. ^ Mauldin, Joanne Marshall (2007). Thomas Wolfe: when do the atrocities begin?. University of Tennessee Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-1572334946. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Richards, Constance E.; Kenneth L. Richards (7th Edition 2004). Insiders' Guide to North Carolina's Mountains. Insiders Guide. p. 99. ISBN 978-0762730049. 
5. ^ Brewer, Carson (New edition 1989). Just over the next ridge: a traveler's guide to little-known and out-of-the-way places in southern Appalachia. Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 140. ISBN 978-0961565640. 
6. ^ Eubanks, Georgann (2009/2010). Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains: A Guidebook. ReadHowYouWant & University of North Carolina Press. pp. 63–65. ISBN 978-1458716033.