WNC History Tours

29/08/2024

Two men are seen fishing on Lake Chatuge, Clay County, June 1945.

Lake Chatuge was formed in 1942 after the Tennessee Valley Authority constructed Chatuge Dam, both named after a former Cherokee settlement. It was then the highest earthen dam ever created.
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From the Conservation and Development Photo File, State Archives of NC.

29/08/2024

Woah! 🤯

28/08/2024

Happy 828 Day!! Hope your August 28 is great 😌

25/08/2024

Looking for something spooky Looking for something spooky to do this fall? 🎃 Our history tours are full of fascinating (and a little eerie) stories about WNC’s past. Perfect for getting into the Halloween spirit! Book your Halloween tour now! https://buff.ly/3Mhgdyk 828-307-3591 https://buff.ly/4dzTJod

Looking for something spooky to do this fall? 🎃 Our history tours are full of fascinating (and a little eerie) stories about WNC’s past. Perfect for getting into the Halloween spirit! Book your Halloween tour now! https://www.wnchistorytours.com/ 828-307-3591 ...

24/08/2024

It’s almost leaf-peeping season It’s almost leaf-peeping season! 🍁 Our tours in Sylva, Highlands, and Bryson City are the perfect way to experience the stunning fall colors while learning about WNC’s history. Secure your spot today! https://buff.ly/3Mhgdyk 828-307-3591 https://buff.ly/3XhkWXa

It’s almost leaf-peeping season! 🍁 Our tours in Sylva, Highlands, and Bryson City are the perfect way to experience the stunning fall colors while learning about WNC’s history. Secure your spot today! https://www.wnchistorytours.com/ 828-307-3591 ...

23/08/2024

Summer might be ending Summer might be ending, but the adventure is just beginning! 🍂 Get ready to see the beautiful fall colors in Sylva, Highlands, or Bryson City with WNC History Tours. Book your fall tour now before spots fill up! https://buff.ly/3Mhgdyk 828-307-3591 https://buff.ly/4dUrhx5

Summer might be ending, but the adventure is just beginning! 🍂 Get ready to see the beautiful fall colors in Sylva, Highlands, or Bryson City with WNC History Tours. Book your fall tour now before spots fill up! https://www.wnchistorytours.com/ 828-307-3591 ...

22/08/2024

📚 📖 📚

✨ Time Travel Tuesday ✨

Thomas Wolfe, born on October 3, 1900, in Asheville, North Carolina, spent his boyhood in a large Queen Anne-style home, which his mother operated as a boardinghouse called the "Old Kentucky Home." This home, built in 1883 and significantly expanded by the early 1890s, served as the backdrop for Wolfe's vivid autobiographical portrayal in his novel Look Homeward, Angel (1929). Wolfe's depiction of his family and the townspeople, under fictional names, was so candid that the book was initially banned from Asheville's public library for over seven years, reflecting the town's mixed feelings about its portrayal.

The house itself is a piece of literary history, preserved almost exactly as it was during Wolfe's time, with many original furnishings. It became a memorial to Wolfe in 1949, offering visitors a glimpse into the early 20th-century boardinghouse life that shaped one of America's literary giants​.

22/08/2024

Back to school Back to school doesn’t mean the fun has to stop! 📚 Take a break from the books and dive into WNC’s rich history with our guided tours. Perfect for students and families visiting Western Carolina University. Book your spot now! 🎟️ https://buff.ly/3Mhgdyk 828-307-3591 https://buff.ly/3yWZJIA

Back to school doesn’t mean the fun has to stop! 📚 Take a break from the books and dive into WNC’s rich history with our guided tours. Perfect for students and families visiting Western Carolina University. Book your spot now! 🎟️ https://www.wnchistorytours.com/ 828-307-3591 ...

21/07/2024

That rocks 🪨

Ninety years back, researchers turned their eyes to Judaculla

By Jim Buchanan

Ninety years ago this month, Jackson County was buzzing with the news that the archaeological world was turning its eyes to the study of a longtime county celebrity, Judaculla Rock.

The front page of the Ruralite reported a Boston University history professor, Robert Moody, had recently visited the rock. Moody had collected all available material available on the site and was planning to present it to Warren Morehead, director of the archaeology museum at Phillips Andover Academy. Morehead, regarded as one of the nation’s foremost experts on American Indian lore and relics, was expected to shed light into the mysterious soapstone rock covered with carvings.

Locals had known about the rock for decades and the Cherokee for centuries. The 1934 research did little to answer the many, many questions about the rock that remain to this day.

What is known is that Judaculla Rock has more carvings on a single rock than anywhere else in the Eastern U.S., with at least 1,548 carvings ranging from depressions to stick-like figures to rings and more. The site, a stone’s thrown off Caney Fork, shows signs of human use more than 3,000 years ago; the area shows evidence of bowl manufacturing and soapstone quarrying from that point, with the petroglyph carving probably beginning 1,500 years ago up until the arrival of European settlers and disruption of Cherokee traditions.

Cherokee legend associates the rock with Judaculla, the slant-eyed giant said to have left slashes on the rock when he jumped down from his farm on the mountaintop above. Others believe the rock is a map of a Cherokee victory over the Creeks in north Georgia in the mid-1700s, while others believe the rock is a map of game and resources in the area.

These are all good guesses, but none are definitive.
What is certain is that the Parker family have been good stewards of the rock for more than a century. In 1959 Milas Parker donated a small tract around the rock to Jackson County. In 2011 Jerry Parker placed 107 acres into a permanent conservation easement to protect the site.

In 2013 researchers conducted a laser-guided scan of the rock to better view its markings. Despite good faith efforts from researchers and governmental leaders to preserve the rock, it is increasingly falling to the ravages of weather, graffiti and vandalism.

It’s also been the topic of more than a few controversies here in the age of social media. In 2014 a television crew arrived to do a program on the site but drew fire for its supposed plans to wade into “sensationalized, unscientific programming” regarding the origins of Judaculla Rock.

Pisgah National Forest Archaeologist Scott Ashcraft, who also serves as director of N.C. Rock Art, urged Jackson County in an email to “scrutinize” a request by Committee Films to visit Judaculla Rock. “I am divesting myself from this project at this time,” he wrote. The production company in question had suggested other archaeological sites could be linked to Knights Templar and the Mayans.
Indeed, Judaculla is all over the web and streaming platforms in this regard. You can find sites linking it to portals to other dimensions, aliens, bigfoot or whatever other flavor of the month is currently popular.

The year 1934 didn’t yield many answers to Judaculla.
The year 2024 might lead one to believe it’s a rabbit hole for conspiracy theories.
We can only hope the site is preserved for future study and investigation, and a solid answer awaits us in the future.

PHOTO CAPTION: A pic of Judaculla Rock taken in the 1930s.

20/06/2024

17/06/2024

1910

21/05/2024

This look is an Absolute Classic 👌

The 2000-year-old clothes of the Huldremose Woman, a bog body recovered in 1879 from a peat bog near Ramten in Denmark. It consists of a checked woollen skirt, a checked woollen scarf and two skin capes. Now on display at the National Museum of Denmark

20/05/2024

The Jackson County Courthouse was built in 1914 after Sylva became the seat of Jackson County. The courthouse is an example of Neo-classical Revival Style, which is a popular style for many courthouses in North Carolina. In the 2000’s the courthouse went under renovations and an addition was added to the back. Today the courthouse is the home of the Jackson County Library and the Jackson County Genealogical society. Give this great landmark a visit this month!

22/04/2024

Senator Ga***rd Nelson from organized the first sit-ins and teach-ins that we now know as .

He chose the date April 22, 1970 because it was between and final exams.

20 million at 2,000 colleges and universities and 10,000 grade schools participated.

27/03/2024

The Weeks Act made it so that the federal government would manage the forest, coordinate better fire control between states and federal governments, and it also outlawed controlled burning that was practiced by Native Americans for the purposes of land management.

On March 27, 1911, the first land purchased under the newly enacted Weeks Act created Pisgah National Forest.

The Weeks Act, named for Massachusetts Congressman John Weeks, allocated $9 million in federal funds for the purchase of 6 million acres of land in the eastern U.S. that was specifically to be used for conservation.

Named for Buncombe County’s Mount Pisgah, which in turn was named for the peak from which the Bible says Moses viewed the promised land, the forest’s history is deeply connected with that of the neighboring Biltmore Estate. German experts hired by George Vanderbilt to manage Biltmore’s lands founded the nation’s first school of forestry in the area in 1898, and the bulk of the forest’s land came to the federal government in 1915 when Edith Vanderbilt offered to sell 86,700 acres of Biltmore property for a relatively small sum to ensure that land was preserved.

Today the forest includes more than 510,000 acres that stretch across 15 counties in the western part of the state.

Image: Debbie Tullos

27/03/2024

On March 27, 2013, Judaculla Rock, a soapstone boulder in Jackson County, was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Though commonly identified simply as a boulder covered with ancient and mysterious engravings, Judaculla Rock is the best-known and largest example of an American Indian petroglyph that can be found in North Carolina.

The petroglyphs, or rock art, at Judaculla were carved intermittently within the Late Woodland to Late Mississippian periods from about 500 A.D. to 1700. The rock itself is actually one of several petroglyph boulders within a 15-acre area that is an archaeological site of great significance.

The site is also a landscape component of a prominent Cherokee legend that chronicles the vast supernatural and physical realm of a creature known as Judaculla. Cullowhee, six miles from the rock, is believed to be a shortened and anglicized form of Judaculla-whee, meaning Judaculla’s Place.

Today, the Judaculla Rock is managed by Jackson County, which received the property in 1959 as a donation from the Parker family, very conscientious caretakers who still own the surrounding lands. The Eastern Band of the Cherokee is a principal partner in efforts to protect, enhance, and celebrate the site.

13/03/2024

Isabella "Belle" Boyd, a spy during the Civil War, gained fame for her espionage activities. Born in 1844 in Martinsburg, Virginia, Boyd became involved in supporting Confederate soldiers after the Union occupied her hometown.

She began her espionage career by serving as a messenger for Confederate Generals Jackson and Beauregard, using her feminine charm to gather information from Union soldiers.

Despite being arrested multiple times, imprisoned, and exiled, Boyd continued her daring exploits. One notable incident involved eavesdropping on Union officers and then delivering a crucial message to secure a Confederate victory.

Boyd's memoir, Belle Boyd, in Camp and Prison, exaggerated her actions but sold well. She later became an actress, married multiple times, and had children. Boyd died on stage in 1900 at the age of 56. Her childhood home is now a museum.

10/02/2024

Black History Month is my favorite month ✊🏽

31/01/2024

😳

in 1921, a true maritime mystery began...and continues to this day.

At 6:30 am on January 31st, C.P. Brady of the Cape Hatteras Coast Guard Station spotted a five-masted schooner in the morning light, aground and helpless on the shoals.

The ship named Carroll A. Deering was discovered run aground, sails set, and belongings left behind, but there was no sign of the crew on board. The circumstances surrounding the disappearance remain unsolved, leading to various theories, including piracy and supernatural explanations. The Carroll A. Deering is often referred to as the "Ghost Ship of the Outer Banks."

Visit our page to read more details (which has all the makings of a Hollywood ghost story):

https://www.nps.gov/caha/learn/historyculture/theghostship.htm

📸 | The Mariners Museum

14/12/2023

When figgy pudding was having its heyday, a homemaker would start making it MONTHS in advance. The dried fruit would have soaked in a wine, in a cold cellar or spring house, long before it was blended together with other baking ingredients. It would also often be soaked in alcohol and warmed up over the hearth fire or wood stove when it was time to eat it. I'm certainly not saying B. Dylan Hollis made it wrong! But this is probably not a typical "figgy pudding" recipe that would have been sung about in the mid-19th century, when people were demanding it in exchange for endless singing.

09/10/2022

Tell us a scary story.

Sightings, hauntings, mysteries, and spooky tails.

Everyone has one.

We want yours.

….
…

09/07/2022

Bread’s Suprise Ingredient: Antlers

The earliest settlers of European descent would use a small amount of grated deer antlers to help bread rise.

Not too much! More than a dash of the powdered antler would give the bread an odor of ammonia.

Yeast was very expensive and temperamental and not always available.

09/07/2022

The Joyce Kilmer- Slickrock Wilderness in Graham County, NC is named for Alfred Joyce Kilmer, a famous poet who was killed by sniper during the First World War, leaving behind a wife and one-year-old child. The forest hosts examples of more than 100 tree species, some of which are over 400-years-old, and more than 20 feet in circumference and 100 feet tall.

Trees
By Alfred Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

08/07/2022

The Plott Hound:

-NC's official State Dog is the Plott Hound (1989)
-Originally raised by the Plott family in the 19th century, in Balsam, NC
-Tenacious trackers ~ Prized by hunters of bear and wild boar