Day 03 - Black Mountain, NC to Griffin, GA

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

I made my camp the evening before at the Ingles grocery store in Black Mountain and spent a pleasant early morning there as well. I stocked up on Duke's Mayonnaise and Texas Pete in advance of leaving the Carolinas. As I was going to be passing through Austin, Texas on this trip, my good friend Jeff Reese, former North Carolinian, asked me to bring him some Jenkins Liver Mush. The Jenkins Liver Mush is not available outside of western North Carolina and poor Jeff had been missing it since relocating to Austin...

Proceeding on, through Black Mountain...

The venerable old Monte Vista Hotel, in Black Mountain...

Continuing through Black Mountain...

The old Town Pump is no more...

Out of Black Mountain and into Asheville...

Proceeding on... through Cherokee, Maggie Valley, the Nantahala, to Murphy...

My Father was born in Cherokee County North Carolina and my Mother was born in Cherokee County South Carolina. Murphy is the county seat of Cherokee County.

Murphy, my Father's hometown...

Proceeding on to Culberson, North Carolina, a few miles southwest of Murphy, on the Nottely River. Culberson is on the North Carolina / Georgia line and is where my Father was born and raised. The old house is gone now, but I wanted to go to where it once stood...

This is where Highway 60 crosses the Nottley River, in Culberson. Turning south just before the river onto Raper Rd...

Raper Rd. and the new Nottley River bridge...

This is the same river crossing as in the above shots. The original bridge was built back in 1935 and the crew was made up of local men. The new bridge is sturdy and functional but lacks the character of the old bridge...

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As an aside... this is a photo from the same period as the above construction shot. This is my Grandfather Charlie, in 1939, when he worked for the TVA on the Hiwassee Dam as a steam fitter... a trade that he learned on a long working stay in California. I don't know why Grandfather Charlie was not on that bridge crew in 1935, as the bridge is less than a mile form the old Thompson home. Maybe the bridge was under construction while Grandfather Charlie was working in the oil fields around Bakersfield, California...

This is just south of the Nottley River Bridge, facing toward the northeast (up river). The old Thompson house was just beyond the line of trees on the right. Father told me that an old Indian village had been at the far end of that field. When I was a boy my Grandfather Charlie Thompson gave me some Indian arrowheads that he found in that area. I've imagined what that old Cherokee village might have been like a thousand times through the years...

Off to the east on Old Culberson Rd... a few hundred yards up the hill, on the left...

Just across the road from where Bigfoot is parked (behind Bigfoot) is the site of the old Thompson home where my Father was born and raised. The old property is no longer in the family and has grown over. I have fond memories from when I was a young boy of weekend family trips to visit my Father's parents at this place (about a 4 hour drive from Charlotte). On this day I wanted to play my new Gibson Dove at this place... at the spot that would have been the old front porch, where my Father would have played guitar and mandolin when he was a young lad in the 1940's and early 50's. I could imagine my Uncle Fred picking "Spanish Fire Bells" on that old porch. I've heard that Grandfather Charlie was a fine bass singer and that Uncle Clink, who lived down the road, was a fiddle player. I wanted some of that to rub off on the Dove...

From the old days... Grandmother Dollie and Grandfather Charlie in front of their home - that stood on this spot...

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From the old days... My Father, his sister Blanche, his mother, and his brother Elmer, beside the porch of the old Thompson home that has now grown over...

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From the old days... Grandfather Charlie and his dogs, behind the old home, with the barn in the background. The Nottley River was a couple of hundred yards beyond. What's left of the tree in this shot is possibly what's under that tower of overgrowth in the shot above (between the shot of Bigfoot and the shot of the guitar being held).

What's left of the old well house, to the right of where the old home stood...

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From the old days... Grandfather Charlie with a dog and gun, in front of the same well house pictured above...

The Gibson Dove, just about where that old porch would have been. I picked a few tunes... "The Wildwood Flower," Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky"... "Sweet Bye & Bye"...

Looking back down the Old Culberson Rd. from whence I came. This was a gravel road back in the days of the old Thompson home...

Looking down the Old Culberson Rd. that I continued upon... toward "Happy Top" and "The Line"...

Great Uncle Ralph's (my Grandfather Charlie's brother) old home...

These 2 dogs followed me for about half a mile...

"Happy Top" church, where my Father's family attended back in the old days. "The Line" church, a little further down the road, is the site of many family graves...

The old community is all but gone in these parts and the pace of change has quickened. I also noticed several swaths of nearby land that seem to have been burned by a forest fire several years prior.

Bethany Baptist Church, "The Line." Grandfather Charlie Thompson and and Grandmother Dollie are buried here, as well as many other Thompsons.

Click here to see a Photo-Journal entry from December 21, 2002 that covers this same territory. I was on a Christmas visit to Charlotte, from Seattle, and during that visit my Mother & Father & I took a 5 day jaunt around the heart of Dixie that included time around the old Thompson home.

Back the way I came on Old Culberson Rd., back to Highway 60...

28903 Culberson, NC. The Post Office, on Hwy. 60.

Leaving North Carolina, entering Georgia. The property that had been owned by my grandparents was on the state line a few miles from here, on the North Carolina side...

Proceeding on through Georgia... through Mineral Bluff, Blue Ridge, southward, a hundred miles to Atlanta...