The Brookstown Inn History Exhibit was commissioned on September 24, 2013.

Our History Exhibit is an extensive interpreted photo and archival item display in our lobby about the history of the Historic Brookstown Inn. It fills a gap in the public interpretation of our town’s story. It also details the complicated story of the hotel, which really is that of two different cotton factories built nearly fifty years apart by succeeding generations of the Fries family.

One building became a flour mill for 50 years before joining the other cotton factory. The family’s first money was made in a factory across the street that is no longer there, and remnants of the boiler of the second factory are still sitting in the Visit Winston-Salem offices. The Fries family also helped build six other mills, three railroads and what would become the country’s fourth largest bank. Be sure to visit the exhibit in our lobby to learn more about our inn’s rich history.