Chimney Rock Park and Hickory Nut Gorge

by J. Timothy Cole

Overview

From the opening of Chimney Rock Park by Jerome Freeman in 1890 to Dr. Lucius Morse's dreams for Lake Lure in the 1920s, the development of tourism in the Hickory Nut Gorge area is one of the untold stories of the region's history. For much of the 19th century, the area was remote and known to few; Freeman was perhaps the first to truly appreciate Chimney Rock's potential, but it took the invention of the automobile and the completion of the Charlotte to Asheville Highway in 1915 for that potential to be fully realized. By the 1920s, Chimney Rock Park and the gorge's hotels and summer camps were known to thousands. In 2007, the State of North Carolina purchased Chimney Rock Park from the Morse family, and a new chapter began.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738553177
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	01/02/2008
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

J. Timothy Cole is a librarian at Greensboro Public Library. His publications include The Rumbling Mountain of Hickory Nut Gap (1990), The Forest City Lynching of 1900 (2003), Collett Leventhorpe, The English Confederate (2007), and articles in Our State and Georgia Backroads. Most of the images herein are from Cole's own collection, built over many years.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     6
Introduction     7
Before the Park, 5 million BC-AD 1890     11
Early Park Development, 1890-1916     33
The Heyday of the Park's Development, 1916-1935     59
Along the Trails of the Park, 1910-1950     75
The Development of Lake Lure, 1923-1927     89
Inns and Camps, 1800-1950     99
Selected Bibliography     126
Index     127