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    Lake Lure
    Lake Lure
    Lake Lure
    Ebook180 pages34 minutes

    Lake Lure

    By Jim Proctor

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    About this ebook

    Lake Lure, North Carolina, is known as the Gem of the Carolinas. Twenty-five years after Dr. Lucius Morse and his brothers Hiram and Asahil purchased Chimney Rock in 1902, their dream of creating Lake Lure and the town of Lake Lure was realized. Lake Lure is surrounded by majestic mountain cliffs and fed by the idyllic Rocky Broad River. A popular tourist destination, Lake Lure hosted famous figures through the years, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also significant in film history, it provided the backdrop for Dirty Dancing and Last of the Mohicans. Lake Lure showcases the rich community, tourism, and recreational history of this mountain community.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMay 13, 2013
    ISBN9781439643341
    Lake Lure
    Author

    Jim Proctor

    Jim Proctor is a native of Lake Lure and a five-term mayor. He is a real estate broker and photographer, who lives with his wife, Robin, at Pine Gables, the oldest home in Lake Lure. He enjoys history and has spent most of his life collecting photographs and tales from his community. Lake Lure traces the history of the area with more than 200 vintage images culled from personal collections, postcards, and the Town of Lake Lure.

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      Book preview

      Lake Lure - Jim Proctor

      Griffin.

      INTRODUCTION

      Lake Lure, one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, is often billed as the Gem of the Carolinas. This mountain lake is surrounded by majestic cliff-sided mountains and fed by the idyllic Rocky Broad River. Lake Lure’s subtropical climate offers diverse plant and wildlife. Lake Lure’s history is not only long and fascinating, it is actually much older than the lake itself.

      Lake Lure is in Rutherford County, North Carolina, and was, of course, first inhabited by Native Americans. At the time of Columbus’s trips to the New World, this area was near the boundary of the Cherokee and Catawba Indian tribes. Many believe this area was sacred to both tribes. There are many stories and myths about its occupants and how the valley was formed. The valley was actually formed by the mountains and river and is called the Hickory Nut Gorge.

      This part of Rutherford County was first settled by Europeans around 1760. The highway through Hickory Nut Gorge is, in fact, one of the oldest roads across the North Carolina Appalachian Mountains. This road allowed the travel and tourist industry to come to Rutherford County. During the late 18th and 19th centuries, many way stations and inns were created to provide meals and lodging to the weary travelers. Though often rough, the early roads in this area were highly regarded by the residents of this remote and sparsely settled region. With the rivers too rough for navigation and the railroads still decades away, the early roads and the stagecoaches that negotiated them provided commercial ties to the outside world.

      The route through the Hickory Nut Gorge was favored by the early operators of stagecoach lines. Beginning in 1839, the Great Western Stageline utilized this route on its Salisbury-to-Asheville run. Twenty years later, the Asheville-to-Charlotte United States Mail Line traveled the Hickory Nut Gorge Turnpike, advertised as the cheapest as well as the most direct route.

      James Harris and his sons Dr. John and Zadock Harris were some of the first to be aware of the business potential associated with travel and tourism. They built two of the first inns in Rutherford County and were instrumental in the development and the establishment of the early trade routes. Zadock established his inn in the southeastern part of Rutherford County, while John decided to invest in the more remote but scenic western part of Rutherford County. The Harris Inn near the Rocky Broad River was built sometime between 1782 and 1800.

      The entrepreneurial spirit of the Harris family was well known in the county. Around 1834, the family tradition of innkeeping was furthered when Bedford and Elizabeth Sherrill, Dr. Harris’s daughter and son-in-law, built Sherrill’s Inn at the Hickory Nut Gap, 10 miles to the west of the Harris Inn.

      Dr. John Harris knew that the development of good roads was essential for the development of Rutherford County. He and several other prominent men petitioned the North Carolina General Assembly to help with this cause and let them develop a toll road from Chimney Rock to Asheville. This venture was widely praised, and in 1823, the general assembly authorized expenditures to be used in making and improving the road leading from Asheville by the Hickory-Nut-Gap to Rutherfordton. Dr. Harris was one of the first commissioners of this venture. In a progress report to the general assembly issued in 1830, the commissioners noted that the road had been recently much traveled and boasted that it was destined forthwith, to become the great channel of intercourse between the Western States and the Carolinas. They further stated, The rich and romantic valley of Main Broad River, heretofore locked up by natural towers of rocks and impassable mountains, is now beginning to develop its resources, and present to the way-worn traveler a good road through an exceedingly rough country, rendered doubly interesting by the bold and majestic mountain scenery, which is not surpassed in height, beauty or grandeur in any portion of the Union. In January 1841, the general assembly reappointed Dr. John W. Harris, Bedford Sherrill, and four other men from Rutherford and Buncombe Counties as Commissioners for the purpose of making and keeping in repair a Turnpike Road. In this act, the assembly incorporated the commissioners as the Hickory Nut Turnpike Company and empowered it to issue capital stock, set construction standards,

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