HOTELS AND HORSES

CGH began over 200 years ago, with the original businesses established by Conleys in the interwar period between the American Revolutionary War and The War of 1812. When the organized family began, the 13 American Colonies had recently defeated the British Army, and the new country rapidly expanded to the west. Those small Conley businesses generally formed around the equestrian economy. Those small businesses grew rapidly, thus providing a foundation for the family in the decades that followed.

The construction of houses, barns, and stables, was the largest of those businesses. The manufacture and maintenance of horse drawn carriages, buggies, and coaches were another area of endeavor. Paschal Conley Sr. prospered as a stable and livery owner for the landed gentry before the Civil War, and for the Reconstruction carpet baggers after the Civil War.

Producing bits, bridles, buckles, stirrups, horse shoes and other horse tack, the Conleys dominated blacksmithing in the Tennessee Valley Region. William ‘Bill’ Conley owned a successful string of Blacksmith locations across Northern Alabama, leverage his skills and contacts while managing blacksmith operations at Green Bottom Resort in his youth. Along with his brother and son, Paschal, , Conleys supplied various products and services that fueled the expansion, mostly visibly, the businesses that comprised the horse-driven economy of the era. In the early 1800s, horses were the equivalent of cars and trucks today - the essential blood flow of all of society. Every aspect of farming, industry, commerce, government, and even sports & leisure in America relied upon horses and hounds. The Conleys bred, fed, housed, outfitted those horses and hounds, and grew wealthy as demand increased dramatically in the quarter century from 1790 to 1815.