Warren Williams: The Page-Walker Hotel was built by [Cary’s founder, Frank Page, in 1868. He leased it to Mrs.Clegg who operated it as a railroad hotel. In 1884,] Mr. Walker bought the place from the Pages.

Mary Wilkinson Crowder: It was a hotel as well as a train stop. [The trains] didn’t have dining cars, so they would stop to feed the passengers their meals. At that time, they had a [train] station across from the hotel. The trains would stop at the station, and people would get off and spend the night, eat a meal. [In 1922, the Walkers passed the hotel on to their grandchildren who rented rooms, sometimes to teachers and students attending the Cary School.]

Mildred Sanderford: There used to be a wonderful restaurant in [the Page-Walker Hotel.] Through the twenties, People came out on [the train from] Raleigh after church on Sunday and have their dinner. They could sit out [front on the porch] for awhile before they would get a train back.

Mary Belle Phillips: When we moved here in 1918, a lot of railroad men stayed there. Chloe and Ethel Copeland [lived there] a long time, girls my age. They moved from Durham, and their mother and daddy were building. It was just separate rooms. The first floor was the kitchen and dining area. The bedrooms were on the second and third floors.

Rachel Dunham: My sister and I came to Cary in 1918 to go to [Cary] School. The girls’ dormitory was so crowded [that we lived at the Page-]Walker Hotel. We did light housekeeping. We had to carry [wood and] water from a well up the steps. It was right hard work. We had to burn wood [for heat.] They had a kitchen with an oil stove. [We cooked our own meals.] The big room was used as a dining room. Passengers would get off the Southern train and spend the night. The third floor was the laundry.

Ruth Fox: My father was with the Seaboard railroad. He roomed at the [Page-]Walker Hotel for six months before my mother and I joined him [in 1919.] Austin Rich: When I first came to Cary, I tried the Page-Walker Hotel to rent a room. It was three stories, and they had twelve big bedrooms. [Each bedroom] had two big poster beds. [I was shown a room, but was told,] "You can rent this room, but when we get busy, I’ll have to put somebody else in here with you." I didn’t like that, [so I rented a room from a woman in town.]

Mary Wilkinson Crowder: The Harris’ lived [at the Page-Walker Hotel] for two or three years. Lilly and I started school [together] in ’37. [In 1941,] Mr. John Williams bought it. They renovated it and fixed it up. They had beautiful little ponies, and they let the children ride them. [His] boys took them to the fair to the pony ride. They had a barn and a pasture.

Robert Godbold: When I was real young, people lived in [the Page-Walker Hotel.] They had apartments in there and rented them out. Then [Mr. Williams who] owned the circus [wagons and ponies] bought it. After that, Bob Strother the florist bought it and remodeled it, moved into it and lived into it for several years. But it was just too expensive for him to keep up. [So Anne Kratzer formed the Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel out of the Cary Historical Society, and they took on the formidable task of saving the building. It took fifteen years, but it was accomplished.]

Cary’s Heritage is taken from the book, Just a Horse-Stopping Place, an Oral History of Cary, North Carolina, which is on sale at the Page-Walker Hotel in downtown Cary. The book is a collection of oral history interviews conducted between local citizens and Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel. Proceeds from the sale of this book support the preservation of Cary’s history through the Cary Heritage Museum.