In 1858, Moses Cudworth of Rindge opened the "Halfway House" hotel on the south side of the mountain, roughly halfway from the base to the summit. The "Toll Road" was built to service it. By that time the popularity of the mountain was booming, and it was not long before Cudworth enlarged the hotel to accommodate 100 guests. On busy summer days, the stables at the Halfway House held as many as 75 horses. The Halfway House became public property when hundreds of residents of the nearby towns formed a coalition to buy the Toll Road and hotel, and worked to prevent a radio tower from being constructed on the summit. After the hotel burned down in 1954, a concession stand operated at the site until 1969. It and the toll road were both closed to public vehicles. Moses Spring, with its source in a hole drilled through a rock behind the site, is one of the few remaining artifacts of the hotel years. The foundations of two water tanks, and the nearby reservoir that fed them, are extant on the hillside above the Old Halfway House.