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Archives and History Tuesday Lecture: Thirty-five Years at The Greenbrier

Location/County: Charleston, Kanawha
October 07, 2014

On Tuesday, October 7, 2014, Dr. Robert Conte will present “Thirty-Five Years Studying—and Being Part of—the History of The Greenbrier” in the Archives and History Library in the Culture Center in Charleston. The program will begin at 6:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Conte has been the historian at The Greenbrier since 1978. He was responsible for establishing the archives of The Greenbrier’s historical materials, which he maintains, and is the curator of the Presidents’ Cottage Museum. During his tenure, the secret underground Cold War facility for U.S. Congress was opened to the public, and resort ownership passed from CSX Corporation, which had owned The Greenbrier through its predecessor companies for nearly one hundred years, to current owner Jim Justice.

A native of San Jose, California, Conte received a bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University and, after two years in the military, his doctorate from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio. Before coming to The Greenbrier, he worked at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland and at the National Archives. As historian at The Greenbrier, he is the only full-time professional historian employed by a hotel or resort in the United States.

Conte is the author of The History of The Greenbrier, America’s Resort, published in 1990. An enlarged and revised edition appeared in 1998 and was updated in 2010. In 2007 he produced a historical chapter for a coffee-table photography book, The Greenbrier: America’s Resort. An informal but wide-ranging conversation with Erik Hastings, the resort’s Director of Media Productions, resulted in the creation of a DVD in 2011 entitled “A Brief History of The Greenbrier,” which includes photographs and footage from the resort’s archives.

Conte has written numerous articles for local and regional publications and contributed to newspaper articles, books, and museum exhibits. He currently serves on the West Virginia Archives and History Commission and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia and the Board of Directors of the Greenbrier Historical Society.

On October 7, the library will close at 5:00 p.m. and reopen at 5:45 p.m. for participants only. For additional information, call (304) 558-0230.