A new park opens
“Ghost Town is one of the biggest things that has happened to the western end of North Carolina in many a day. It has proven a giant boost to the economy of a people long hampered by a natural terrain that made farming mostly impractical and by transportation problems that, until lately, didn’t allow much influx of big industry.
Ressurecting the Ghost of Maggie past
Bob Cordier likes a challenge.
So, when the 25-year veteran of the amusement park industry decided he was bored with building houses and was ready to get back into the business, Ghost Town in the Sky seemed a natural fit.
History buffs urge Macon to protect landmarks
Members of a heritage task force in Macon County want town and county leaders to form a commission with regulatory powers to protect historical districts and landmarks.
Brochure highlights militia’s march against Cherokee
A military expedition against Cherokee villages at the onset of the Revolutionary War has been documented with the publication of a full-color informational brochure.
Recounting natural history
For me, no pursuit is truly worthwhile unless it has an associated body of literature one can consult from time to time for insights, inspiration, or just to pass the time.
Rutherford Trace: Local historians examine the legacy of a shock-and-awe Revolutionary War campaign against the Cherokee
By Michael Beadle
To some, it was a crucial military campaign early in the Revolutionary War, an unprecedented patriot force that crushed a potential British ally and paved the way for American independence and inevitable white settlements in Western North Carolina.
From military campaign to political campaign
If politics makes strange bedfellows, then surely Rutherford Trace offers some curious pillow talk in the legislative halls of Raleigh and Washington, D.C.
Champion and Blue Ridge Paper timeline
1893 — The town of Pigeon River is reincorporated by the N.C. General Assembly as Canton, N.C.
The birth of a Haywood County institution: Negotiations for the Champion Fibre Mill and Peter G. Thomson’s Labor Day Legacy
By Patrick Willis • Guest Writer
Just more than 100 years ago, Canton welcomed a man from Ohio who would change the town’s history forever.
In early 1905, an industrialist named Peter G. Thomson decided to visit Western North Carolina with the hopes of building a pulp mill and extract plant to supply his paper factories in Ohio. Thomson knew vast timber in the Southern Appalachian Mountains would greatly benefit his business.
A man in full: Cashiers Historical Society, biographers, history experts and fans explore the life and complex times of Wade Hampton III
By Michael Beadle
Growing up in South Carolina, Robert Lathan remembers how just about everything and everyone was named after Wade Hampton — schools, parks, hotels, towns, and especially children. More than a century after Hampton’s death, this wealthy landowner, Confederate general, governor and senator of South Carolina continues to cast a long shadow on the lands and the people he encountered — including the Cashiers community in Jackson County.
