Salt Pond had been frequented throughout the early part of the 19th century and prior, then in March, 1856, Henley Chapman incorporated the Mountain Lake Co. to provide accommodations and entertainment for its visitors. Soon afterward, a wooden hotel and a saw mill were built. Stagecoach travelers from Christiansburg, Virginia and Union, West Virginia were the primary customers in the days before the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (a predecessor of the Norfolk and Western Railway) was built nearby in the late 1850s.