There was a tremendous boom in tourism and recreation in the 1920s. Nationally known big bands come to the county, including Cab Callaway. Many of the bands played at the Wheeler Hotel, where Bruce Drysdale Elementary School is located today. The famous dance pavilion at the hotel burned in 1927 and the hotel burned in 1930.
The major attractions were at Laurel Park with the Rainbow Lake Casino and Laurel Park Casino, and the lake at Laurel Park was a major site for residents and summer visitors through the 1960s.
Famous writers had homes here or visited, including Dubois Heyward of “Porgy and Bess” fame and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Osceola Lake was booming as summer homes and residents built houses around the lake. There was a supper club, boats and swimming, in addition to the Osceola Lake Inn.
Lenox Park (Columbia Park) was popular with its amusement rides and Toms Park had a swimming pool.
In 1929, the Skyland Hotel opened in downtown Hendersonville.
The Flack Hotel in Edneyville was a site for the newly popular country singers and square dancing.
And more summer camps opened in the county.

 Laurel Park

In 1924, control of the land in Laurel Park had passed from William Smith and Columbus Mills Pace to Florida land speculators. When Laurel Park Estates was incorporated in 1924 the incorporators were L. Roy Sargent, A.T. (A.Y.) Arledge, H. Walter Fuller and Robert R. Reynolds.  Only Arledge was a local resident and not from Florida. This was most likely Allen Yates Arledge who was an attorney in Hendersonville at this time and later moved to Raleigh in the 1930s.
Laurel Park Lake, known at that time as Rhododendron Lake, was connected to Rainbow Lake by a channel that was constructed in 1913. People could paddle canoes and row boats along the channel connecting the two lakes. Rhododendron Lake had a bathing beach, bath house and diving raft. There was a pavilion with a dance floor along the shore where bands played. The dance pavilion hosted as many as 30 nationally known bands, including Tommy Dorsey and Ella Fitzgerald.
In July 1925, J. Perry Stoltz arrived from Florida. He announced plans to build on top of Jump Off Mountain a 15-story hotel with a radio tower at the top to rival his Fleetwood Hotel in Miami Beach. Ground was broken Sept. 8, 1925.
A new concrete highway (Laurel Park Highway), the first fully lit highway in the United States, was built to the hotel site to transport construction materials. Less than a year later, financial problems led to a halt in construction. The 13th floor was the last floor completed, and the hotel was razed in 1939 by a salvage company.
In 1926, the manager of heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey was offered $35,000 plus other benefits amounting to about $25,000 to bring the boxer for a month’s training at the Laurel Lake Casino. He was training for his upcoming fight against Gene Tunney. Dempsey and his wife, movie star Estelle Taylor, arrived in April 1926 and stayed at the Kentucky Home Hotel in Hendersonville. He trained at the Laurel Park Casino during wet weather, at Indian Cave during windy weather, and at the Fleetwood Hotel construction site at other times.
This was the biggest commercial promotion in the history of Henderson County. It is estimated that 200 sports writers visited the county.

 Lake Lure and Bat Cave

It was about 1887 that Jerome Benjamin “Rome” Freeman purchased Chimney Rock. He began developing the area for tourists and built a stairway to the rock. In late 1902, Lucius Boardman Morse and his brother bought the land from Freeman. Morse, a doctor who lived in Hendersonville at the time of the purchase, began development of the area in 1915.
Tourists began flocking to the Hickory Nut Gorge area to visit Chimney Rock and the Bat Cave. At this time the cave was a major tourist attraction.
In 1925, the Morse family created Carolina Mountain Power Company and funded the construction of a dam on the Broad River to form Lake Lure. The full impoundment of Lake Lure was completed in 1927. The Lake Lure Inn was completed in 1929.
The Esmeralda Inn in the nearby community of Chimney Rock in Rutherford County was where several movie stars stayed during the filming of movies in the 1920s.
The Rockwood Inn was built in the Bat Cave community in 1902 for Adolphus Ervin Hudgins. It became a hotel in 1912. It was later bought by John H. Barker and became known as Barker’s Rockwood Inn.
The Salola Inn on Sugarloaf Mountain near Edneyville and Bat Cave was built by Jonathan Williams about 1900 and opened around 1910. Williams sold the inn to a group of Florida investors prior to 1920. The inn was later owned by J.A. Hooks and became known as Clow’s Dude Ranch. Attractions included tennis courts, croquet, and horseback riding. The inn stood until the 1950s when it was known as the Ranch House.
The Edney Inn at the end of Edney Inn Road between Edneyville and Bat Cave was also a popular stop for tourists visiting the area in the 1920s.
By 1919 and during the 1920s, the community of Bat Cave, including its famous cave, was a major tourist attraction.

 Summer Camps

Prior to 1920 Henderson County was known for its summer camps. Camp Minnehaha in Middle Fork between Bat Cave and Gerton suffered extensive damage in the Flood of 1916. The camp re-opened prior to 1920. There was also a Camp Fire Girls Camp at Bat Cave prior to 1920.
By 1920, there were two camps in Laurel Park, but one moved to Osceola Lake in the 1920s.
In 1922, two camps opened along Lake Summit in Tuxedo.
The Bell family, owners of the Green River Manufacturing Co., opened Camp Mondamin along the lake.
Joseph R. Sevier, a Presbyterian minister who was also president of Fassifern School for Girls, opened Camp Greystone for girls on the lake.
After the closure of the Carolina Military and Naval Academy at Highland Lake in 1924, Camp Highland Lake opened at the site.
Camp Pinnacle for boys opened at Wolfe Lake in Flat Rock in 1928 by H.R. Dobson, a football coach from Spartanburg, S.C.