In 1887, Claiborne County, Tennessee, in Harrogate, but prior to the establishment of Harrogate itself…

The Watt’s Hotel in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, is visible in this picture. The hotel was “built by English prospectors circa 1887, and destroyed by fire in 1912,” according to the mounted articles. The piece goes on: The men’s names (on the far right, seated in a chair backwards): The president of Middlesborough Town Lands Co., L[t]d. is Alexander Alan Arthur. General Manager of the American Association Ltd., located in London, England; initiator of the development that led to the construction of the Cumberland Gap tunnel, the Powells Valley Railroad connecting Knoxville, Tennessee, to Cumberland Gap, and the Middlesborough, Kentucky, town’s establishment; these developments, along with their ramifications and subsidiary interests, constituted a great industrial movement and, at the same time, a romantic adventure in a remote and uncharted area.