THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 23, 1994 TAG: 9410210049
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN TRAVEL EDITOR
LENGTH: Long : 299 lines
ABOUT 60 SECONDS is all it took - from 4:14 to 4:15 one dark winter morning in 1993 - to create what, I think, has become the single most popular tourist attraction in all of Jackson County, N.C.: the train-bus crash site from the early scenes of the movie ``The Fugitive.''
Here, about a mile northwest of the wonderful little mountain village of Dillsboro, the makers of make-believe created a celluloid scene that moved no less an authority than the late Lewis Grizzard to write that ``all other train wrecks, real or staged, will forever pale in comparison.''
Today and everyday they come, by the trainload, 600 or so at a time, aboard the eclectic collection of cars of the private Great Smoky Mountains Railway that makes scenic excursions along the Tuckasegee River between Dillsboro and Bryson City to view the crash scene beside the rails.
The train slows from its customary 15 mph to a 5-mph crawl for a ``photo op'' as it passes what's left of that dramatic riverside crash and derailment. About half of the shell of the prison bus is off in a field along with the blue and red Illinois Southern diesel, its nose embedded in the deep dirt culvert where the traumatized Dr. Richard Kimball found momentary sanctuary - and became the fugitive.
It's hard to imagine how Kimball got out of this mess alive - and only slightly injured - except that if he hadn't, it would have been a really short and pointless movie.
IT WAS THE AFTERMATH of another even more cataclysmic event from the much more distant past that drew me to this region, about an hour's drive west of Asheville, where North Carolina's borders meet those of Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia.
It was the tectonic collision of the continental plates we today call North America and Africa - some say 200 million year ago, others as far back as 580 million years - that created the southern Appalachian Mountains. The Indians, here since about 10,000 B.C., came to call these wrinkles the ``Great Blue Hills of God.'' Euro-American settlers, mostly Scotch-Irish, would name the various ranges the ``Great Smoky Mountains'' and the ``Blue Ridge Mountains'' and the ``Balsam Mountains.''
They converge in Jackson County and the surrounding area. The results are pristine natural vistas, mist-veiled valleys, bucolic farmland, sheer cliffs, mirror-surfaced lakes, eight trout streams and lakes to justify a couple of fly-fishing schools, whitewater rivers rushing through forested gorges and, with neighboring Transylvania and Macon counties, the heaviest concentration of North Carolina's more than 500 significant waterfalls.
At this time of the year, these mountains are awash in vivid hues of gold, rust, orange and red. There's a smell of woodsmoke in the chill air.
Man has treated this rugged region kindly, developing a backcountry playground in harmony with all that nature has created. Great Smoky Mountain National Park lies to the north, and it is embraced by western Carolina's two national forests, Nantahala and Pisgah. The nation's longest scenic highway, the Blue Ridge Parkway, runs through it.
THE PEOPLE OF JACKSON county welcome visitors with an unaffected, down-home Southern hospitality that flows freely. They market the region as ``The Great Variety Show.'' And they are right. I found that a long weekend was not enough time to do all of the things I'd wanted to do.
Whitewater rafting and tubing are challenging enough to banish boredom yet tame enough to allow almost anyone from young children to the elderly to participate safely - mostly Class I and II rapids, occasionally Class III when the water's up.
I went rafting on the Tuckasegee with the people from Blue Ridge Outing. I had thought this was the river where they filmed ``Deliverance,'' and I hoped I'd see that cockeyed kid pick the banjo. Turns out that was another river nearby.
This was a pretty calm ride. Only problem was when we bounced off a rock and our guide bounced out of the raft. He was pretty embarrassed, I think.
The Blue Ridge Outing people specialize in adventures for kids in the mountains - not just river excursions. Company president Bob Mattingly has written a free booklet on family outings. (See Traveler's Advisory for address.) They also book trips on the more challenging Nantahala, Ogoee, Chattooga and Pigeon rivers. The Ogoee will be the site of 1996 Olympic whitewater events.
There are trails for hiking and horse riding and mountain biking; resorts, grand golf courses, tennis facilities, a wonderful and varied assortment of bed and breakfast establishments, loads of interesting places to eat and all sorts of places to shop for antiques and local arts and crafts. Even a couple of places to ski.
And there are little towns and villages and hamlets where you can stroll up and down Main Street - people will say, ``Hi, how you doin'?'' and actually care about your response - and then sit on a rustic bench and eat an ice cream cone.
DILLSBORO COMES TO MIND, right off. It comes close to being one of those don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it towns: two streets wide and a dozen blocks or so stretching along the railroad tracks and the Tuckasegee River.
At one end of the town, in a tiny triangular park, is a memorial to the late town dog Brownie, a tail-wagging mongrel - a kind of town greeter who used to receive Christmas cards from tourists whose hearts he had won.
Brownie had a habit of strolling down the middle of the street. That was OK with the locals, but it led to his greatly lamented demise. He was run over by an unknowing outsider who was unaware of the understanding in Dillsboro that Brownie had the right-of-way.
It's that kind of town.
``Along about 19 and 70 we had 11 or 12 businesses and a population of 235,'' mayor Wade Wilson told me. ``Today we have 60 businesses and a population of 122. Now, you'll have to decide whether we're making progress or not. I can't say for sure.''
Wilson wasn't even a candidate for mayor when he was first elected by write-in vote 18 years ago. Didn't want the job, in fact, and it wasn't until four days after the election that he realized he'd have to take the job in order to resign from it. Instead, he took it and kept at it.
Now, he says, ``I think about retiring occasionally, but I'm not going to. Once you get something started, you want to see it finished.''
I met Wilson as we sat in side-by-side rockers on the front porch of the Jarrett House (1884), which has been taking in visitors for the night and feeding them for well over a century. It's on the National Register of Historic Places.
We were resting up for a walking tour of the town, which includes a delightful collection of high-quality shops and studios, eateries and B&B inns. Nothing ticky-tacky here. My favorite place is Bradley's General Store, a time-warp sort of place with wonderful aromas. It's got an old-fashioned soda fountain with bent-wire chairs and marble-top tables. Wilson's daughter, Susan Owen, runs the place.
Dinner at the Jarrett House is a must. There's a short menu: fried chicken, baked ham, country ham or trout, served with slaw, vegetables, candied apples, hot biscuits and tea or coffee. Prices range from $9.95 to $11.50, and it's an all-you-can-eat deal. No, MORE then you can eat.
And if you're not careful, you won't have room for the remarkable vinegar pie. That's would be a big mistake. It's really a misnomer; the pie is tartly sweet and very rich, much like what I call a chess pie. It's so good it may be a sin.
The Jarrett House is run by Jim and Jean Hartbarger and their family. He was a respected journeyman coach (high schools in the Shenandoah Valley, head coach at Ferrum, assistant at Virginia Tech and head coach at Western Carolina in nearby Cullowhee) who turned trencherman hotelier in 1975. I think the Hartbargers must have brought the recipe for candied apples with them from the Shenandoah Valley. There, and at their place, it is an art form.
On the back of the Jarrett House menu, I noticed a short discourse on real loafing, expressing a concern that ``over the years loafing has become almost a lost art.''
As a frequent practitioner, I was particularly heartened by this passage:
``With conviction and practice, great changes can be wrought. If we all put our hearts and mind to it, if we muster all our resources, if we keep trying hard enough and long enough, we may become really accomplished loafers and thus come to know the restorative value or idleness. We need not be eternally and everlastingly committed to a life of activity, effort and vigor.''
As I said, Dillsboro's that kind of town. My kind of town.
THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS Railway is another manifestation of the region's extraordinary enterprise. Today it operates several scenic excursions over 67 miles of track that were part of what was called the Murphy Branch. For nearly a century ``The Murphy,'' as it was called, opened up the isolated mountain community's to the world.
When good roads were eventually cut through the mountains, train service dwindled and eventually ended. In 1988, Norfolk Southern put the tracks up for sale as scrap iron.
Local businessmen Doug Ellis and Malcomn NacNeill, originally interested in the scrap iron, looked over the line and realized that it was still in good condition and cut through some beautiful sections of the area. Gradually, the idea of a tourist line came to them.
The state of North Carolina liked the idea and purchased the track and right-of-way for $650,000 and leased it back to a group of investors for 25 years. The group began to collect aging rolling stock. Soon they were in business.
I rode the line in a refurbished parlor car on a 3 1/2-hour round-trip excursion from Dillsboro to Bryson City and back - there are three other excursions available - along the Tuskaseigee River, through the 836-foot long Cowee Tunnel, past sleepy mountain communities and open pastures and through dense hardwood forests.
It was in Bryson City, incidentally, where Richard Kimball-Harrison Ford drove that ambulance he stole at the hospital right down the main street and across the Great Smoky Mountains Railway tracks.
But that's not the thing Bryson City is famous for. It's the actual hometown of Heath Shuler. Huh? Sorry, I forgot not everyone is a Redskins fan. Shuler, formerly the ``Tennessee Rifleman'' of University of Tennessee fame, is the quarterback-savior designated to lead the Redskins out of the wilderness and back into the promised land. A modern-day Norm Snead.
There's a sort of shrine to Shuler on the wall of a frozen yogurt shop on the main street. All kinds of photos and clippings and trophies, that kind of thing. Hometown boy makes good, and the folks in Bryson City are right proud.
SOME OTHER POINTS of interest, mostly for sleeping and eating, in from Jackson County:
Dinner and breakfast, buffet style, at High Hampton Inn & Country Club, near Cashiers (pronounced CASH-erz). Delicious, home-style cooking (prime rib is the feature), but it is the place, the setting and the ambiance, that steals the show.
For years it has been said that High Hampton is where Atlanta's affluent go ``camping,'' where the rich from all over these parts ``rough it.'' It's an unpretentious cousin of the Greenbrier, the Homestead and Asheville's Grove Park that appeals to a kind of inverse snobbery. Gentlemen still wear coats and tie to dinner.
The small, rustic inn, rebuilt in 1933 during the Depression after a fire destroyed the original, is covered with shaggy bark shingles. Rocking chairs line the porch. Inside is a huge stone fireplace with comfortable sofas and armchairs facing fireplace on four sides. Nineteen cottages, many with porches facing the lake, the woods or the mountains, are a short walk from the inn.
In the 1830s, this was a summer retreat for South Carolina aristocrat Wade Hampton II. He and his son, Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton III, were about as rich as God until the Civil War; in its aftermath, this was about all the general had left. He was living here, in North Carolina, when he was elected post-war governor of South Carolina.
In 1890, the estate passed to a niece and her husband, Dr. William Halstead, who established the first school of surgery at Johns Hopkins University. After Halstead's death in 1920, E.L. McKee of nearby Sylva bought the place and converted it to a resort that is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The McKees are still in charge, William D., son of E.L., is the owner and third-generation Will and general manager.
There's also golf here - a lush, par-71 mountain course that is a thing of remarkable beauty, its island 8th hole is on many ``best'' lists. Nearby is Fairfield Sapphire Valley Resort, which offers a tennis complex, indoor-outdoor swimming and snow skiing. Sapphire's Library Restaurant boasts a chef fresh from the Greenbrier, who serves dishes reminiscent of that resort.
I spent a pleasant two nights at the family-friendly Chalet Inn, a small B&B with a European flavor. The Swiss-German structure is the labor of love of George and Hanneke. He's a former U.S. Army Green Beret colonel who met Hanneke, an Amsterdam native (who reinforced my notion that Dutch women are Europe's most charming), when he was posted at a NATO outpost in Maastricht.
Very interesting couple. They hosted a wine-tasting party one night I was there.
Their chalet is set in 22 secluded acres of mountain woodland, laced with hiking trails, near Whittier. A little brook babbled outside my room with its private balcony. Breakfast is authentic Alpine: German style meats, whole-grain bread, streusel (fruit-filled pastry), muesli, cheeses, fresh-baked brotchen (rolls), fresh fruit, and more.
The Balsam Mountain Inn (1908) is another National Register treasure that survived and thrives today because the effervescent and entertaining Merrily Teasley came along at just the right time. She saw the dilapidated Colonial Revival structure, slated for demolition, sold her inn in Tennessee and bought this MAJOR renovation project in 1990. The inside, she says, was ``wretched.''
What she has done to the sprawling three-story wood structure that was once a major overnight stop for railroad passengers is truly remarkable.
I want to go back and spend a lot more time rocking and loafing on the 100-foot-long, two-tier front porch. There are 34 beautifully decorated guest room and suites, each with private bath. Period furnishings are found throughout the inn, original paintings on the walls, two fireplaces in the rambling lobby and a cozy 2,000-volume library. Wonderful food is served in the large first-floor dining wing, which Merrily hopes to enhance with a wrap-around porch. She's still at work, too, renovating the third floor.
Merrily likes to take guests to her favorite hiking trails along the Blue Ridge Parkway, just a half-mile away.
For cozy elegance, Henry and Dottie Hoche's Innisfree Victorian Inn and Garden House a few miles north of Cashiers has few peers - in this region or elsewhere. They've been awarded four stars by Mobil and they're not satisfied as long as five are available.
The two structures, designed as romantic, quality-time retreats for couples (no children, please) overlook Lake Glenville, the highest (3,500 feet) east of the Rockies. Victorian decor and Oriental carpets fill both structures - along with gorgeous displays of Dahlias. Henry is an international award-winning dahlia grower, and gardens dot the landscape.
My favorite room is the Charles Dickens Suite, which has a fireplace that opens both to the bedroom and to the bath with a hot tub for two and a garden view.
No pets here, either. But cat lovers will be comfortable here. Lover Boy is the head cat; his eating area on the verandah is decorated with flowers in cut-glass crystal, and he and Henry take private evening walks together. The associate cats are Michaelangelo, Vivian van Gogh and Mother.
Sylva is a typical Southern small town county seat with an atypical, not to say monumental, courthouse. Set high on a hill above the town, this neo-classical structure, said to be the most photographed courthouse in North Carolina, boasts of an approach with more steps than any courthouse in all of America. If I knew who keeps such statistics I'd call to check both of these superlatives.
I have no idea of the odds of my choosing on my own a place called Lulu's Cafe on Main Street in this little country town. No matter; it came highly recommended. I knew the moment the kitchen aromas met me at the door that this was a very special place. Art deco decor, a healthy approach to cuisine, homemade salad dressings, superb service, attractive wine list and a signature pumpkin cheesecake are what this place has to offer. Big city stuff; the locals are lucky.
It was from under the bridge at Sylva, incidentally, where the fugitive Richard Kilball-Harrison Ford crawled out of the river and stole those dirty blue coveralls out of the wrecker truck to replace his yellow prison garb.
Somebody call deputy U.S. marshall Sam Gerrard, or Wyatt Earp or Tommy Lee Jones. . . whatever his name was. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
LAVIDGE & ASSOCIATES INSET: STEPHEN HARRIMAN
A Great Smoky Mountain Railway excursion train enters the
835-foot-long Cowee Tunnel built 100 years ago with pick-axes.
Inset: Fall colors of the Blue Ridge.
STEPHEN HARRIMAN
The single most popular tourist attraction in Jackson County is the
train-bus crash site from ``The Fugitive.''
LAVIDGE & ASSOCIATES
High Hampton Inn & Country Club in Cashiers, N.C. offers golf with a
view of the mile-high Chimney Top Mountain.
Map
KELCEY NEWMAN
Photo
STEPHEN HARRIMAN
Dillsboro, N.C., population 122, is full of high-quality shops and
studios, eateries and B&B inns.
by CNB