We celebrate Women's History Month with the first of several features on local women with important stories to tell. This one features Exie Wilde Henson.

In April 2012, the Transylvania Times published a feature on a video documentary project about Lake Toxaway history undertaken by John Nichols III of Charlotte and Lake Toxaway.

Rebuilding Lake Toxaway presented many challenges - initially many of the same ones that the Toxaway Company faced at the turn of the century.

After the Lake Toxaway dam burst in the flood of 1916, the property sat abandoned for many years, with only caretaker Tolvin Miller and his family nearby.

For a number of financial reasons, the resorts in the Sapphire Country changed management leases frequently in the years following the opening of the Toxaway Inn.

With early success, the Toxaway Company investments in the Sapphire Country resorts seemed well-founded. The region—and specifically the Toxaway Inn— was “the” place to see and be seen!

The Franklin Hotel was built in Brevard by the Toxaway Company as a gateway stop for their guests to the Sapphire Country, and in repayment to Brevardians for investment help to build a railway between the two.

Sapphire Inn and Cottages were built in 1897 on Lake Sapphire by the Toxaway Company and enjoyed a decade of lively operation. Unfortunately a fire in the summer of 1906 destroyed the inn.

Just how did Western North Carolina become “the” resort venue in the late nineteenth century? It was largely due to the efforts of the Toxaway Company, a collection of industrialist entrepreneurs who built five great inns of the time.