WRITERS & MOUNTAINS 4

WRITERS & MOUNTAINS 4	RAILROADS & TRAVEL AND TOURISM
	From : Western North Carolina R.R. Scenery, "Land of the Sky", Portland, Me. : Chisholm Bros., 188?-] D. H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804

Morley 1913	MARGARET MORLEY The Carolina Mountains (1913) "In 1876 the first railroad triumphantly scaled the Blue Ridge, coming up from Spartanburg, South Carolina, ascending at the south of Tryon Mountain by way of the Pacolet Valley. But this feat so exhausted its resources that it was ten years before it got from Hendersonville to Asheville. Meantime, the State of North Carolina in 1881 built a railroad that, approaching the mountains from Salisbury by way of Morgantown, followed the course of the first turnpike past Old Fort, surmounted the troublesome Blue Ridge in a series of curves and spirals and windings that was a feat of engineering, finally tunneling through the mountain and continuing down the Swannanoa Valley to Biltmore, where turning westward, it went on to Asheville, whence in 1882, the line was complete to Paint Rock. The town now grew so rapidly that, in 1887, it proudly boasted of eight thousand inhabitants, and of having become one of the leading resorts of the South, thousands of tourists coming there from nearly every state and territory in the Union, while banks, hotels, clubs, schools, and churches appeared as by magic..." (Morley, Margaret, The Carolina Mountains, 1913, pp. 131-132)

Presbrey 1895	Frank Presbrey The Land of the Sky and Beyond (1895 ?) "Space there is for all to travel, therefore is the world so wide." The man or woman who loves Nature for Nature's sake, loves the mountains best. It is their rugged crests which show forth the temper of the day. They smile in sunshine and frown in storm, and in the great creases of their rugged faces lie the deep shadows of the night while yet the noonday sun is high. There is nothing else in Nature which so inspires one to purer thoughts or so truly marks the insignificance of man, as the mountains. The baubles and necessities of life men may buy with money. To the rich may be given the power to surround themselves with luxuries- the handiwork of man -- and art, the product of painters' skill; but Nature has spread her canvas with a gorgeous scheme of coloring, with a depth and grandeur of background of which the finest paintings ever produced are but the feeblest imitations, the veriest mockeries. The handiwork of man may be shut within walls and viewed by but the favored few, but Nature's beauties are unveiled to all, the rich and the poor alike, and it is not the touch of gold, but the responsiveness of an artistic soul, which is the open sesame to their enjoyment. Yet Nature, prodigal though she may be, has bestowed her brightest jewels with far from lavish hands. It is but here and there that she has moulded her choicest gems and left them unveiled for man's enjoyment. But in no part of the world has she brought into happier combination a greater variety of lovely scenery than in that portion of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee where the Blue Ridge Mountains have been, by perhaps some mighty subterranean upheaval, shattered into a half-score of lateral and cross ranges. To be sure the White Mountains have their Washington, the Adirondacks their Marcy, but one may stand in Asheville and on any fair day count more than a score of mountain peaks higher than these." The Land of the Sky and Beyond by Frank Presbrey (1895 ?)

		[Front cover] Land of the Sky - Southern Railway, Premier Carrier of the South. (1913)	Map of the Southern Railway lines. (1913) Land of the Sky - Southern Railway, Premier Carrier of the South.
Southern Railway 1913	PEACE is one of the fundamental elements of happiness. Ambition and inspiration are basic principles of progress and modernism. This book is designed to present, through the medium of pictures and text, a view of a section of this great country, which, in beauty of scenery and salubrity of climate, is incomparable in the world. Here Beauty and Peace, Ambition and Inspiration, go hand in hand. Generations ago, Western North Carolina was named "The Land of the Sky." It has long been characterized as the most exquisitely beautiful region in all America. Here the resident or the visitor finds things ethereal and sublime; and here Nature inspires the mind, body and soul as if by the omnipotence of the Almighty. A visit to this favored land enables the resident of the large city, of the small town or of the barren country hamlet to rest and recuperate, and, at the same time, through modern facilities, comfortable and delightful, to come into contact with Nature in her most charming and agreeable moods. By a simple operation in topography the student or traveler may obtain an accurate idea of the extent of this beautiful territory. Place a compass point upon the city of Asheville—which is the center of the region—indicated on the Southern Railway map, and describe a circle which shall be, geographically, one hundred and thirty miles in diameter and approximately four hundred miles in circumference. Such a circle would enclose an area of thirty thousand square miles of irregular plateau, with an average elevation of two thousand feet above the level of the sea, situated between the Blue Ridge Mountains on the east and the Great Smokies of the Cumberland Range of the Southern Appalachians on the west. Within this circled area is the famed "Land of the Sky," the "Beautiful Sapphire Country," the exquisite "Land of Waterfalls," the "Balsam" and "Nantahala" Mountains of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. The territory is almost in the heart of the great Appalachian Reserve........" *Land of the Sky* (1913)- p. 1. Today we describe Asheville as 'Any Way You Like It,' or 'Un-bashful Asheville,' and other turns of phrase that signal a change in the way the city now positions itself in the contemporary world of travel and tourism. Now tourists enter the city and the western area of the state by automobile and by plane and by bus. While discussions continue on whether to rebuild the rail line into the city, the necessary momentum has not returned that transportation option to the heights it enjoyed in the early twentieth century.

		Cover The Land of the Sky and Beyond By Frank Presbrey	Back InsideCover The Land of the Sky and Beyond By Frank Presbrey
Presbrey 1895	"Space there is for all to travel, therefore is the world so wide." The man or woman who loves Nature for Nature's sake, loves the mountains best. It is their rugged crests which show forth the temper of the day. They smile in sunshine and frown in storm, and in the great creases of their rugged faces lie the deep shadows of the night while yet the noonday sun is high. There is nothing else in Nature which so inspires one to purer thoughts or so truly marks the insignificance of man, as the mountains. The baubles and necessities of life men may buy with money. To the rich may be given the power to surround themselves with luxuries- the handiwork of man -- and art, the product of painters' skill; but Nature has spread her canvas with a gorgeous scheme of coloring, with a depth and grandeur of background of which the finest paintings ever produced are but the feeblest imitations, the veriest mockeries. The handiwork of man may be shut within walls and viewed by but the favored few, but Nature's beauties are unveiled to all, the rich and the poor alike, and it is not the touch of gold, but the responsiveness of an artistic soul, which is the open sesame to their enjoyment. Yet Nature, prodigal though she may be, has bestowed her brightest jewels with far from lavish hands. It is but here and there that she has moulded her choicest gems and left them unveiled for man's enjoyment. But in no part of the world has she brought into happier combination a greater variety of lovely scenery than in that portion of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee where the Blue Ridge Mountains have been, by perhaps some mighty subterranean upheaval, shattered into a half-score of lateral and cross ranges. To be sure the White Mountains have their Washington, the Adirondacks their Marcy, but one may stand in Asheville and on any fair day count more than a score of mountain peaks higher than these. Prof. J.A. Holmes, the eminent geologist, is authority for the statement that there are in Western North Carolina forty-three distinct mountains, 6,000 feet and upward in altitude, or higher than Mount Washington; and over eighty which exceed 5,000 and nearly approximate 6,000, while the peaks exceeding 4,000 feet are innumerable. They are beautiful mountains, too; shapely, and with lines as graceful as those of a model, they raise their proud heads far above the fertile valleys which lie at their feet. Clothed to their very summits with a most magnificent deciduous forest which Professor Fernow declares the finest on the continent, they form a picture of natural beauty and grandeur, the equal of which would be difficult to find in any land. There are here and there, however, stupendous precipices, as for instance on old Whiteside and Caesar's Head, the former presenting a solid, almost perpendicular wall of rock 1,800 in height. But these instances are rare, the general contour being one of grace and beauty. The noble chain, which, taking its beginning in the Highlands of Canada, traces its rugged course down across New Hampshire and Vermont, Eastern New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, is known according to the locality as the Green, White, Adirondack, Alleghany or Blue Ridge Mountains; but it grows in majesty as it stretches southward, attaining in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee by far its greatest altitude and massiveness. Here, too, it has spread into a myriad of lateral ranges like the bursting of a rocket, sending its offshoots into South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, where they merge into the lowlands are are lost to view. It is in the very heart of these mountainous regions, at an average altitude of nearly twenty-five hundred feet above the sea, that Nature has reserved her most harming sanatorium, her "Garden of the Gods," the Asheville plateau. This is "The Land of the Sky," the spot where human health and human happiness are in sweet accord, where the blue azure touches lightly the towering summits of lofty mountains, where the purest of crystal water gushes forth from the hidden springs of an untainted soil, where malaria is unknown and contagion unfeared. Here, too, Nature has arrayed herself in her choicest and most beautiful vestments, and by her smiles and softest touches inspires hope in the invalid and ambition in the strong. Here, as nowhere else, are to be found in greatest perfection, ideal climatic conditions, for neither in summer nor winter are there extremes in temperature, the seasons being marked by the calendar rather than by the weather. The temperature maps prepared by the National Government show that there is formed by the peculiar topographical conditions existing on the Asheville plateau, the ideal thermal belt of America. In the "Good old days" of our forefathers the trip to the Asheville plateau was made after the fashion of the time in lumbering old state coaches- a wearisome trip which only the hardy could undertake. Now, whether from North, West, or South, the approach is one not only of convenience but of positive luxury."The Land of the Sky and Beyond, by Frank Presbrey. p.1-2
	"Few people realize that North Carolina is more than 500 miles in length, of that if New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Jew Jersey were made into one State, it would still lack over 5,000 square miles of being as large as North Carolina. Fifty-nine percent of its surface is forest, and it combines within its limits a greater variety of climate than any State in the Union except California, being semi-tropical along the sea and high and mountainous in the Western portion. It is rich in minerals as well as timber, and has not only a competent State Board of Agriculture but a Geographical Survey of National fame which has, through its able reports on the resources of North Carolina, brought several million dollars into the State for investment, and has saved the citizens of the State many times what it has cost for its support, by preventing through its reports many useless investments. North Carolina is also rich in agricultural resources, and some of the finest plantations in the South are in this noble commonwealth. It is doubtful if anywhere a more perfect example of the modern farm could be found than that of Col. Frank Coxe. It is situated in Polk County, lies along the famous Green River, and is a part of that celebrated bottom land known all over North and South Carolina as "Egypt." Colonel Foxe has improved it year after year until it has now reached the highest stage of perfection. The residence is of the pure colonial type, and upward of a hundred years old, and about it are the thousands of broad acres under scientific and intelligent cultivation. Living back in the utter most fastnesses of the mountains, remote from all except those of their own kind, there still dwell many "Moonshiners"--a characteristic class of people-unlike any other humans except themselves. The moonshiner naturally feels that he has as much right to boil his fruit or grain into spirits as the farmer has to cook hominy in his own kettles, but the law places a negative upon his claim. So the mountain chemist is given to hiding, and, at times, when hunted too persistently, to shooting his pursuers. This is all wrong, because unlawful, but is hard to instruct the gray matter of his brain on such subjects. It is grewsome [sic] to see these lank, leathery, unkempt, semi-barbarous brethren brought into court, with manacles on their limbs, and summarily consigned to doleful exile in distant dungeons. You will, when you see them and their wives and their progeny, wonder how such a country can produce such specimens of humanity, but it is easily understood when explanation is at hand. In that region are reared the best of cattle, sheep, poultry, and fruits, but the moonshiner disdains them. He prefers, or habit and poverty compel him to prefer, soggy hot biscuit, vile coffee, cadaverous, greasy bacon, assassinated in a frying pan. He drinks too much of his own fiery decoction and too little of the salubrious water that leaps, gushes and sparkles on every hand. If one could capture young moonshiner girls and boys, feed them on civilized diet, girdle them with proper comfort, garment them decently, treat them amiably and educate them wholesomely, the transformation would be thorough, startling, and supreme. It would be an object-lesson conveying its own moral, and this would be the evolution of many Esmeraldas off the mimic stage, and many a study, comely, valiant, intellectual man. The spur of the Southern Railway running southwest from Asheville to Murphy, a distance of 120 miles, is famous as one of the most daring pieces of railroad engineering in this country. During almost the entire length of the road the scenery is romantically wild, and presents not only very many charming views, but offers to the sportsman a prefect paradise. The streams are full of trout, and through the vast forests roam deer, bear, and wild turkeys. The country penetrated by this line is rich in talc, mineral paint, marble, kaolin, and considerable gold has been washed out. The road creeps around the wild gorge of the Natahala River, so deep that the rays of the sun only shine upon the surface of the river for an hour a day. Here is a waterfall which makes a clear plunge of nearly 200 feet; there, a sublime vista where the Little Tennessee has cut its way through the rocky barriers which stemmed its course; everywhere, views which are entrancing and sublime. It is a noble region in which Nature has uplifted her mighty monuments, and with a setting of rare loveliness...... " "The Land of the Sky and Beyond, by Frank Presbrey. p. 11-12.
	If a diet of "soggy hot biscuit, vile coffee, cadaverous, greasy bacon, assassinated in a frying pan," produces "lank, leathery, unkempt, semi-barbarous brethren ," and can be directly related to poverty, then much of our fast-food contemporaries are rushing to poverty in a countryside overrun by "semi-barbarous brethern." But, the diet of the mountain traveler is always at the center of many narratives of the region around the turn of the century and it can be contrasted to the opulent meals served at the many luxury hotels operated during the early years. Even in the contemporary glossy magazines produced to promote life in the western regions of North Carolina, today, food plays a central role. Restaurants in Asheville, for example, span the range of eating habits of the American public. While the "moonshiner" may not have his still out under the moon in the mountains today, the breweries in basements and also in restaurants provide some of the most interesting wines and beers in the Southeast. Dandelion, Elderberry and Possum Grape wine have expanded the distilleries' repertoire but are now brewed by little old ladies from Miami, and corporate lawyers from Boston. Ale and beer are in stainless-steel vats and tapped by week-enders from Atlanta and Raleigh.

Railroad Scenery 1880's	From : Western North Carolina R.R. Scenery, "Land of the Sky", Portland, Me. : Chisholm Bros., 188?-] D. H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804


		Frank Presbrey. Winter Homes in the South. 1880's Promotional literature for the Southern Railway.	The Sunny South: Some interesting drawings by E.H. Suydam,


Southern Railway 1920's		"Community Life" "In Western North Carolina there is a plateau, the minimum altitude of which is two thousand feet above the level of the sea, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Iron, Smoky, and Unaka Ranges of Eastern Tennessee, which has for many years been appropriately known as "The Land of the Sky" and popularly describes the most beautiful region in all America. This section by reason of the unsurpassed beauty of the scenery and its temperate climate , as well as its easy accessibility from all points by the Southern Railway, has within the last few years made rapid advancement in the matter of community life.
	Community Life - The establishment for work or pleasure of a colony of congenial people of kindred thoughts and desires. The religious communities - of which there are many in Western North Carolina -- hold summer conferences for purposes of discussing the advancement of all phases of Church Work. The salubrious climate and magnificent scenery make these conferences doubly enjoyable impressive and inspiring. To many the great opportunity for outdoor amusements and athletic sports, the mountain trails and noble streams have also issued their appeal. Select social clubs have been organized, club houses and cottages built and colonies formed, where the entire or just "vacation time," may be whiled away in rest, comfort and recreation in the Summer Paradise. The ample and excellent through train and sleeping car service of the Southern Railway puts the wonderful region at your very door and to this fact, combined with the glorious scenery, is due the tremendous popularity which community life has attained in "The Land of the Sky," which is largely described herein." Southern Railway Company, "Community Life," (1920's ?)

Morley 1913	Since Then ... "Since then, like a cosmic spider, the Southern Railroad has woven its meshes below the Carolina mountains on either side, and thrown its steel threads across them in several places, while now yet another line is being surveyed across the Blue Ridge to the north of Tryon Mountain, up the Broad River Valley, past Chimney Rock, and on as far as Bat Cave where it follows a devious route of escape by way of the Pigeon River Gorge. The Blue Ridge that looks so ethereal in the distance presents almost insuperable obstacles to the civil engineer as do also the guarding ramparts of the valleys of the plateau but the great transcontinental line, that is to reach from the Atlantic coast of North Carolina to Seattle on the Pacific, will doubtless find a way." (Morley, Margaret, The Carolina Mountains, 1913, p.380)


Ehle 1967	JOHN EHLE The Road (1967) Railroads held a special fascination for the author, John Ehle, who was raised in Asheville and who published a very successful tale built from the many stories, legends, and the history surrounding the building of western North Carolina's railroad. In The Road, Ehle describes the horrific toll on human life that the construction of the railroad exercised on its builders. In his carefully crafted work he captures the push and pull of progress and the change this new transportation system brought to the remote mountains. His novel is a somber balance to the "salubrious"and "glorious scenery" promotions of the Southern Railway and captures the cost of "pleasure," --- an economic down-side we seldom acknowledge as tourists continue to stream into this part of the state --- though sadly now, few by rail. The Road. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. [Ehle holds the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Thomas Wolfe Prize and the Lillian Smith Award for Southern Fiction, and is a five-time winner of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction.]

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