Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 30, 1990 TAG: 9005300074
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELIZABETH HAHN SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The river gives the valley - as well as numerous businesses, schools and parks - a name. Most of people, if nothing else, at least have driven over the river at Radford, Ripplemead, Eggleston, or Shot Tower State Park on Interstate 77.
And many people regularly swim or fish in the river, or play by its banks. For those who do, and for those who know the river as something more than the name of the business down the street, the New River has a certain aura.
Part of the river's charm comes from the fact that it is an oddity. Unlike most rivers east of the Continental Divide that flow south and east and drain into the Atlantic Ocean, the New River runs north.
It crosses west through the Allegheny Mountains in the bed of the ancient Teays River, and drains a vast region in three states.
Also, as many river enthusiasts know, the New River is the second-oldest river in the world. The Nile River in Egypt is the oldest.
The New River is multifaceted - tame and gentle in spots, wild and woolly in others.
The river originates as the South Fork, a quiet mountain stream at an elevation of 4,000 feet at the Continental Divide east of Blowing Rock in Watauga County, N.C. Around Blowing Rock - where if conditions are right at the rock, updrafts will return a thrown object to your hand - rivers abound. There you can find the Ocoee, the Nolichucky, and the Watauga, as well as the New rivers.
Matt Dewhirst, a college student in Boone, N.C., describes the New River there as old and mellow.
"For white water here," he said, "what you want is the Nolichucky. But now for fishing, you want the New. You want that mellow of an old river. Sit back, tie a string to a branch, catch some indigenous brown trout, not the speckled kind which is usually stocked."
Just south of Mouth of Wilson, Va., in Ashe County, N.C., the South Fork of the New River merges with the North Fork.
The North Fork, a smaller mountain stream, springs up near Creston, N.C., at the North Carolina/Tennessee border.
From a spring on what is called simply, "Head of the River Road," down a mountain known simply as "the Peak," the North Fork flows into Shatley Springs, Healing Springs, and various other creeks and springs, until it joins up with the South Fork in Ashe County.
The South and North Forks converge at a point called Weavers Ford. Here, the river widens, and seems to flow more lazily than at other points along its course. However, Michael Rutherford, a local tobacco and Christmas tree farmer, says it can get wild at times.
He also says there is plenty of wildlife here along the river. "[They're] bears Virginia turns out at Mount Rogers. And bobcats. One mountain lion was caught in a trap a couple years ago. Even a wounded eagle was found on the river one day."
But Sam Loggins, who has lived on the river at Weavers Ford all his life, thinks "the river ain't what it used to be. Used to could go where you wanted. Now its getting all busted up into lots and being sold. People putting up no trespassing signs."
The state of North Carolina owns a 1,010-acre, 26 1/2-half mile stretch of river here, the New River State Park. Permits can be obtained for camping and fishing, mostly for smallmouth bass, and for hunting in the Carson Woods preserve, by calling 919-982-2587.
Out of North Carolina, the New River heads northeast near Galax and through Fries. The two towns are in litigation over a permit that Galax has obtained for a waste treatment plant three miles upriver from Fries.
While Galax maintains that the sewage will be sufficiently treated to be discharged into the river, Fries remains concerned enough to have obtained a temporary injunction against the plant.
There is another reason the citizens of Fries are concerned about the future of the river and their town.
By the small Fries dam, the old Mount Vernon Mills building sits empty, the Greenville, S.C., business having closed its doors Dec. 31, 1988. When the company pulled out, it gave the town the deed to the building. Bill Warrick, the town's mayor and a homespun environmentalist, would like to see a recycling center open in the old plant, "rather than get another company in here that's going to pull out or pollute the river."
As a sign in the town explains, Fries is also a "center of early recorded country music," and the original "New River Train" song was claimed in nearby Galax by the Ward family as early as 1895. Country recording artists Henry Whitter, Pop Stoneman and Kelly Harrell all sprang up along the banks of the river.
Othar Fortner, a Fries citizen carrying on the tradition, says the river is the inspiration for many of his songs. He has 24 songs at WBRF in Galax, recorded at nearby Cold
Creek Recording Studio. At the mayor's suggestion, Fortner even wrote a song specifically for the town's Earth Day celebration that laments the possible polluting of the river.
Out of Fries, the river moves on through Carroll, Wythe, Montgomery, and Giles counties, the area most New River Valley residents are familiar with.
After passing through the Celanese plant in Giles County, one of the few remaining industries on the river, the New River flows into West Virginia by the Glen Lyn Appalachian Power plant, then heads north toward Pipestem.
Pipestem (the newest and largest state park in West Virginia that was named for the plant called kinnikinnick used in making pipes) perches high on the rim of the Bluestone Canyon between the Bluestone and the New Rivers.
At the mouth of the Bluestone, where it meets the New, the rivers are backed up by the impressive Army Corp of Engineers Bluestone Dam, forming Bluestone Lake.
Just north of the dam sits quaint Hinton, W.Va., where visitors can catch Amtrak to Chicago and points west, or visit the Historic District or the Railroad Museum.
While the first 185 miles or so of the New River are fairly tame, the last stretch from Hinton to the Gauley River is another story. Designated the New River Gorge National River by Congress in 1978, this 62,000-acre river corridor under the jurisdiction of the National Park service contains numerous class 3-5 white-water rapids, medium to very difficult, under normal water conditions.
At one point through the 1,000-foot-deep gorge, aptly known as "the Grand Canyon of the East," the river drops 240 feet in a 15-mile stretch, providing class 5 thrills for white-water enthusiasts. Perhaps this section of the river explains why the Shawnee Indians who fished and hunted along its banks called it "Kennishake," or "River of Evil Spirits."
Rafters are not the only thrill seekers who come to the New River. On Oct. 22, 1977, the New River Gorge Bridge, the world's longest arch bridge, was opened to traffic.
Since then, every Oct. 22 in honor of "Bridge Day," half of the bridge is opened to pedestrians, and to bungee-jumpers and parachutists who want to make the 876-foot jump off the bridge, which is 325-feet higher than the Washington Monument.
The New River, which comes in like a lamb in North Carolina, finally roars out at Gauley Bridge, where the merging Gauley and New Rivers form the Kanawha, ultimately running into the Ohio and then the Mississippi.
The old New has run its northerly course for thousands of years, and as Othar Fortner of Fries sings, will likely be here "long after you're dead and gone, when your great-great-great grandchildren walk by."
by CNB