The Beautiful Sapphire Country.

The Toxaway Company's Hotels,
Summer Season 1901,
Fairfield Inn, Sapphire, N.C.
The Lodge, Sapphire, N.C.
Sapphire Inn, Sapphire, N.C.
The Franklin, Brevard, N.C.

The Toxaway Company take pleasure in announcing that during the past winter the Fairfield Inn has been enlarged and improved by the extension of the main building fronting the lake and the addition of forty rooms, some twenty of which have bath attached. The dining-room has also been enlarged, length of porches doubled, and guests who have in past seasons visited the Fairfield will be very much pleased with the added attractiveness.

The extension of the Transylvania Railroad from Brevard to Toxaway has been completed. This materially shortens the drive, which can now be made with comfort in two and a half to three hours, also assuring the prompt delivery of baggage.

Along the sunny southern slopes and table lands of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina, at an average altitude of 3,000 feet, where broad ridges point off from the main chains towards the lowlands of South Carolina and Georgia, is a country full of delightful surprises to the tourist, sportsman and health-seeker. No other State or region contains so many grand waterfalls, such wide-sweeping mountain views and such beautiful lakes.

The most interesting of the many attractive features to be found are the Fairfield and Sapphire Lakes. Nowhere else in the South, at this altitude, are there such bodies of water. All who visit these lakes are impressed with the wonderful beauty and greatly varied character of the scenery. There are towering cliffs, rising abruptly for a thousand feet from their shores, and cascades of rare beauty falling directly into the lakes from the lofty table-land surrounding. Indeed, it is the general verdict of widely travelled people that, in respect to the remarkable combination and varied and attractive character of lake and mountain scenery, this section is unrivaled by any in the world. Certainly no other part of America has anything to equal it.

Lake Fairfield Looking East

Until recently there was no provision made for the accommodation of visitors to this delightful section of country. Now, however, entertainment is offered by the magnificent new hotel, Fairfield Inn (on Lake Fairfield), Sapphire Inn (on Lake Sapphire) and Mountain Lodge (on summit of Mt. Toxaway.)

Fairfield Inn is -beautifully situated on the shores of Lake Fairfield. It is a modern house in every respect, with excellent water supply, good baths, electric light, etc. It has wide, spacious porches and commodious public rooms, while beautiful grounds and parks, delightful boating and bathing, serpentine drives and shady walks around and about the lake, make this an ideal place for health or pleasure seekers.

A well equipped bowling alley, with pool and billiard rooms, is located on the Fairfield Inn grounds, a short distance from the house.

The Sapphire Inn

The Sapphire Inn, with cottages, will accommodate fifty guests. The grounds are spacious and well kept. There is an excellent livery in connection with the house, and a number of pleasure boats have been placed on Sapphire Lake for the use of the guests. The fishing on this lake is unsurpassed.

Fairfield Valley, Lake Fairfield and Fairfield Inn Chimney Top in the Distance

The Lodge.

On the summit of Mt. Toxaway, is the Lodge. The house is The Lodge easily accessible from either of the lake houses by a nicely constructed and well graded road, winding back and forth along the sides of the mountain for a distance of about three and one-half miles. The accommodations provided here for guests are of the most satisfactory character.

There are good stables in connection, making the place especially attractive for mountain parties. The view from this Lodge, which is on the extreme summit of the mountain, is the most extensive (it being an isolated peak) of any mountain point of vantage in North Carolina, probably in the Alleghany chain. The magnificent character of this view baffles description. Its grandeur and sublimity can only be fully appreciated by those who have seen it in person and felt the soothing magic of its silent but irresistible influence.

Other places have their charms for some, but few, indeed, are those who visit The Sapphire Country and do not find some rare attractiveness that induces them to linger longer than they first intended, and returning pay a more extended visit to this delightful section of Western North Carolina.

[Sapphire Inn & Cottage.]

[Clockwise] View from Mt. Toxaway ; Lodge at Hunting Season ; A Trout Pool ; The Lodge.  [Center] Sapphire Inn & Cottage.

The Estate. [Sapphire Inn]

The estate connected with the hotels contains about twenty-six  thousand acres. It is well stocked with various kinds of game..

The trout fishing is unexcelled, the hatchery connected with the estate supplying one hundred and fifty thousand trout to the streams and lakes yearly. There are seventy-five miles of river and brook fishing, which have been under careful patrol for several years, and as a result of this protection a number of trout were taken last season weighing over three pounds. The only restrictions made as to hunting and fishing are such as obtain in any well-ordered game preserve.

The large and carefully cultivated farms and numerous apple and peach orchards of the company supply the houses with a great variety of fresh vegetables and fruits. On the extensive pasture lands of the company graze numerous flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, the latter being selected with a, view to their excellence for the dairy, which supplies fresh milk and cream in abundance at all times.

Many miles of road have been graded around the margins of the lakes and over the property with a due regard for views which cannot well be surpassed for beauty and grandeur. There are so many pleasant trips to be enjoyed at the resorts in the Sapphire Country, that only a personal visit can adequately portray the beauties and infinite varieties of this region. Within a radius of ten miles of Sapphire are fifty waterfalls, all of them being easily accessible. The height of these falls range from fifty to three hundred and seventy feet.

Whiteside Mountain, which has the highest perpendicular face east of the Mississippi—a wall two miles in length and eighteen hundred feet sheer drop—is one of the grandest mountains in America, and can be conveniently reached from either house. This, with the cliffs of Bald Rock, Chimney Top, Laurel Knob, and Green Mountain, gives to the Toxaway country a picturesqueness peculiarly its own. There are a hundred other attractions, combined with those enumerated, which make this one of the most notable mountain resorts in the world.

"Within a Radius of Ten Miles are Fifty Waterfalls"

The Sapphire golf links lie on a beautiful undulating rise from the shores of Sapphire Lake, midway between Fairfield and Sapphire Inns. It is a two thousand yard, nine-hole course.

Attractions

To the forester, botanist and geologist, this country about  Sapphire is a veritable storehouse of wonders. Here is truly

the forest primeval. In the spring and early summer hundreds of bright-colored flowers light up the old woods; here the rhododendron grows to a height of thirty feet; the air is fragrant with perfume and these old hills hold their secrets well of treasures of wealth yet to be uncovered. The globe offers no greater natural sanitarium than here, where every breath, charged with ozone, develops pounds of energy, and where all conditions for perfect health exist in the highest degree. It is the ideal resort for hay fever sufferers, the disease yielding in a marvelously brief period to the beneficent influence of the mild equable temperature and dry atmospheric conditions. The springs furnishing the hotel with water are absolutely pure.

A Corner of Sapphire Lake Near the Golf Links.

On the very hottest day in summer the thermometer has never registered above 87 degrees, while a record of the temperature kept at Sapphire for the past four years show it to be an average of 69 degrees for the entire summer.

Sapphire is reached over the Southern Railway to Hendersonville, thence over the Transylvania Railroad to Toxaway. The drive from Toxaway to Sapphire, a distance of fifteen miles, is over the new Sapphire Turnpike, a perfect road, making the drive one of ease and pleasure, with grand forest and mountain scenery.

Summer excursion tickets maybe purchased from all points to Brevard and Toxaway.

The Toxaway Company has established at Toxaway good stables, and hacks and carriages may be had on the arrival of all trains.

The Franklin, Brevard, N.C. 

The town of Brevard, N.C., is the gateway of the beautiful Sapphire Country. It has an altitude of 2,250 feet ; is forty miles from Asheville, N.C., and is one of the most enterprising towns of the State, owing to the impetus given it by the Transylvania Railroad and the Toxaway Company.

The town of Brevard, N. C., is the gate-. way of the beautiful Sapphire Country. It has an altitude of 2,250 feet; is

forty miles from Asheville, N. C., and is one of the most enterprising towns of the State, owing to the impetus given it by the Transylvania Railroad and the Toxaway Company.

It is reached via the Southern Railway to Hendersonville, N. C., thence via the Transylvania Railroad, one hour's ride.

The Toxaway Company, appreciating the advantages of Brevard as a Resort, and the desirability of having a first-class hotel in the town to accommodate the numerous people who wished to visit the place, and at the same time to care for those of its patrons who desire to stop over en route to the Sapphire Country, on July 1st, 1900, completed and added to its\already noted system of hotels, The Franklin, a handsome and commodious structure with accommodations for 200 guests, which after a very successful season closed November 1st and will re-open June 1st, 1901. During the winter the Company has been

The Franklin is built on the highest point in Brevard, overlooking the French Broad river and valley, in the midst of a park of eighty acres. No expense has been spared in its appointments and furnishing, which are second to none in the South. Every room is an outside one, each commanding a magnificent view of mountain and valley scenery. A great many rooms are en suite with private bath, fine porcelain lined tubs and open plumbing. The entire sanitary arrangements are perfect, while the water supply is piped direct to the hotel from pure mountain springs. The large truck farm under the care of experienced gardeners, supplies the hotel with fresh vegetables each day.

For information relating to the Fairfield Inn and Sapphire Hotels, address Manager of Hotels, Sapphire, N. C., and for the Franklin Hotel, Brevard, N. C., address J. J. Heelan, manager, Brevard, N. C.

The French Broad Press, Asheville

Inscribed with name "Elsie Raymond Fitch."