Booming Rosman Required New High School

During the first two decades of the 20th century the community of Rosman experienced rapid development with the extension of the railroad from Brevard and the growth of Silversteen’s tanning and logging industries.  Other businesses in the town included a bank; a hotel; a movie house; general, grocery, drug, furniture, and feed stores; and a couple of barber shops.

Rosman's first brick school house (right) was built as a high school in 1921.
It served as the grade school after the new high school (left)
was built a few years later.

This resulted in a population boom in Rosman and the surrounding area.  Although a multi-room school had been built in 1908 and the tenth grade was added in 1913 there was a growing need for separate high school in the community as enrollment hit record numbers.   Still it was not until 1921 that the Board of Education ran a notice to contractors “for the construction of a two-story brick schoolhouse with all modern conveniences in Rosman.” 

On March 15, 1921 the people of Rosman overwhelming voted in favor of a $15,000 bond to supplement $10,000 already voted for to build and equip a new high school.  J.M. Kilpatrick was awarded the contract and construction was to be completed by December 31.  Insurance documents describe the building as a 4300 square foot, two-story brick building with a basement.

The first day of school in the new building was January 30, 1922.  A February 17, 1922 Brevard News article announced, “The new building is comfortable and surroundings pleasant, but every room is filled almost to capacity on the first day.”

Spike Dumville's photograph shows Rosman High & Middle Schools
at the same location today.

Just four years later, Hendersonville architect Erle Stillwell was commissioned to design a new high school for the town.  The building was a typical symmetrical two-story brick building with a one-story auditorium centered on the back side.  Six wooden pilasters gave the front a classical appearance.  It was 13,000 square feet and served as Rosman’s high school through May 1975.

The earlier high school became the elementary school in 1927.  In 1948 Stillwell designed alterations and an addition to the building.  It was used as the elementary school through May 1975 and then for an additional year as the high school while the current high school was constructed.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.

Pisgah Fish Camp Approaching 50 Years

For nearly 50 years Pisgah Fish Camp has served residents and visitors alike.  In 1968 Dan Hawkins opened the Brevard Fish Camp in the former Club House of the Brevard Country Club on Country Club Rd.  While fish camp restaurants were plentiful throughout the coastal and Piedmont areas of North Carolina Hawkins’ restaurant was the first of this type in the mountains.

Fish camp restaurants were designed to serve fish and seafood at reasonable prices.  The Brevard Fish Camp offered catfish, flounder, ocean perch, shrimp, oysters, and crab; plus hamburgers, hamburger steak, and fried chicken.  The most expensive meals on the menu were either a seafood platter of oysters, flounder, and shrimp or a dozen fried oysters for $3.25.  Both were served with sides of coleslaw, french fries, and hushpuppies.  The only other side available was onion rings for fifty cents.

The Yesterday photo of the former Pisgah Fish Camp
was provided by Dana Hawkins.

Within a year Hawkins decided to relocate the restaurant.  He leased a building at the intersection of highways 64, 276, and 280 near the entrance to the Pisgah National Forest.  At the time there was very little that far out of town.  Renamed the Pisgah Fish Camp, the restaurant offered inexpensive food that wasn’t available elsewhere in a relaxed family-friendly atmosphere where the customers and staff knew each other well.  Locals were more than willing to drive the short distance from town and folks regularly came from surrounding counties.  The restaurant also delivered to workers at Ecusta.

On August 7, 1977 a middle of the night fire did extensive damage to the interior of the restaurant.  The structure remained intact though and with the help of the community and friends the Pisgah Fish Camp was able to reopen in less than two weeks. 

The mountain in the background of Don Voltz's (above)
and Chuck Gilmore's (below) photographs line up with the mountain
in the early photo to show the location as Pizza Hut today.

Over the years Hawkins owned a total of six different restaurants from Buncombe County to Greenville, SC.  It was a family run business.  Dan’s wife, Fran and their children all worked at the restaurants as well.  After the fire in 1977 Dana Hawkins took over as manager of the Pisgah Forest location.

In 1991 Hawkins bought property a few hundred yard to the east along Hwy. 64, remodeled an old auto repair shop, and moved to the Pisgah Fish Camp’s present location.   On November 16, 1991 the Brevard Fire Department conducted practice burn on the former building and other nearby stores in advance of construction for Forest Gate Shopping Center.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.

Franklin Park Was Once a Lake By a Hotel

The Franklin Hotel, built by J. Frances Hays around 1900 on East Main St., was surrounded by an expansive lawn, acres of trees, and a small lake.  In 1909 Hays sold the hotel and 80 acres to the Franklin Park Improvement Company for $35,000.

This early photograph of Franklin Lake way
likely taken while Hay still owned the
Franklin Hotel, circa 1900-1909.

A survey prepared by A. L. Harden and R. C. Bailey at the time shows details of the proposed neighborhood from E. Main Street to King Creek and Rice Street to Park Street.  Included within the area are Lakeview Ave., Hilt St., Robinson Ave., and Cascade Ave., which is East French Broad Street today.  At its center is a four acre park with a two acre lake.  The dam for the lake runs across the east end of the park.  There are 89 lots of varying sizes identified on the survey. 

However the project did not appear to be very successful as only a few homes were built at the time.  A comment in the May 24, 1912 Sylvan Valley News stated, “The bed of what used to be the Franklin lake is now a blot on a bit of landscape otherwise very attractive.  The ground is seamed and cracked in an unsightly way, and near the broken dam a good deal of water has accumulated to stagnate, have a bad appearance, and more unsanitary than the lake itself.”  Over the next several years sale notices for the property regularly ran in the newspaper.

In April 1922 it was announced that C. C. Yongue would purchase the property and restore the lake.  By the end of June work was completed.  Yongue advertised, “Spend the Fourth at Franklin Lake and Park.”  It offered picnic tables and benches, private dressing rooms and lockers, a new confectionary store and rest room, and ample parking.  The two-acre lake was up to 20 feet deep, featured a 100 foot long sandy beach and a 100 square foot enclosed space for small children.

The venture again ran into trouble, taxes went unpaid, and by the Great Depression the lake was gone.  In late 1933 Brevard Building and Loan in conjunction with the town and county undertook creating a park with a swimming pool, tennis courts, and playground facilities.  Funding originally came through the Civil Works Administration with R.P. Kilpatrick as the construction manager.  Later it was transferred to the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and a new construction manager, Ernest Miller, was named. 

The pool was 45 feet wide and 105 feet long with a depth ranging from three-and-one-half feet to nine-and-one-half feet.  The Town of Brevard hired Coach Ernest Tilson to operate the pool which opened on June 28, 1934.  Over the next several weeks the bath house was completed, lights were added, and work continued on the surrounding park.

Sadly on July 18 before the entire project was completed, 39-year-old construction manager Ernest Miller collapsed and died of an apparent stroke while on the job.

Chuck Gilmore's Today photograph was taken
looking across the pool nearly straight toward
where the dam was located.

Don Voltz took his Today photograph beyond the pool
and included the Girl Scout House on the right.

Today Franklin Park covers 4.4 acres at the location of the former park and lake.  Participants in the “Yesterday’s Places Today” contest took their photographs from several different locations and angles on the property.  All entries will be on display on the 2^nd floor at the Library throughout the week.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.

Taking a look at "Yesterday's Places Today"

This early photograph of the Clayton Hotel was use for the
"Yesterday's Places Today" photography contest.

Over the course of the next five weeks Picturing the Past will feature the five photographs used in the “Yesterday’s Places Today” photography contest sponsored by the Local History Room at the Transylvania County Library and the Land of Waterfalls Camera Club.  Each week will focus on one of the original photographs including some background information and share one or more of the entries of the location as it looks today.

Shortly after marrying Belle Wood in 1894, Joe Clayton built the Clayton House Hotel on the corner of Main and Caldwell streets.  At that time Caldwell Street was the main north-south route through Brevard.  Clayton had a general mercantile on the first floor and rooms to rent on the second floor.  He also operated a livery which delivered businessmen and tourists arriving at the nearby depot right to his doorstep.

Belle Clayton and later the Clayton’s eldest daughter, Jackie, ran the hotel/boarding house. The lobby and dining room for guests, as well as the kitchen were located on the first floor on the west side of the building, opening on to a spacious lawn and garden.  Originally the building had a second floor porch across the front and down both long sides, allowing the Clayton family and their guests a place to enjoy the cool summer evenings.  The third floor, with the mansard roof, was added in the spring of 1906.

Josephine Clayton recalled that the family had rooms on the second floor, including a parlor and four bedrooms.  Josephine, born in 1910, was the ninth of eleven children, eight of which survived to adulthood.  More stories about the close knit Clayton family can be found in “Clayton Family Memories” by Josephine Clayton, Jocelyn Clayton, Rob Tolleson, and Jocelyn Clayton Tolleson.

Photographer Ken Williams' view of the corner where the Clayton Hotel
stood for about 50 years was selected as the best overall "Today"
shot of the site.

In later years a millinery shop and feed store replaced Joe Clayton’s general store.   Later still a jewelry and watch repair shop, part of Wheeler’s Hosiery operation, and Carl McCrary’s auto parts shop were located in the space.  Tankersley’s Floral Shop also got its start in the old Clayton Hotel.

An article in the November 3, 1949 Transylvania Times stated that the Clayton Hotel was being razed and a modern two-story building was planned in the future.  That building was never constructed.  For many years the Brevard Monument Company was located on the corner though.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.

Directories Provided a Wealth of Information

Old business and city directories provide a wealth of material for historical researchers and genealogists.  They offer a snapshot of neighborhoods and the larger community as a whole.

In the mid-to-late 1800s Levi Branson compiled and published Branson’s North Carolina Business Directory.  Each volume contains facts, figures, names, and locations of businesses throughout the state.  There are illustrated advertisements from many of the more prominent businesses of the period. In addition they contain an array of statistical information.

For family and local researchers the value is in the details provided at the county level.  Included are county and city officials; colleges and schools; churches, pastors, and ministers; hotels and boarding houses with proprietors; farmers, lawyers, merchants, mechanics, physicians, and teachers; manufacturers, mills, and mines with owners; newspapers; and post offices with post masters. 

Branson’s 1867 directory lists four Transylvania County physicians—Brooks, Harris, Jones, and Lyday and two lawyers—Duckworth and Whitmore.  The 1890 directory lists the three largest communities by population in the county as Brevard (350), Calhoun (215), and Cherryfield (129).

Hill's Brevard City Directory, 1962.

City directories offer similar details for citizens.  They contain names listed alphabetically, as well as by street address.  Generally the head of household, address, occupation, the wife’s name, name of the deceased husband if widowed, and business partners’ names are stated.  City directories typically include government officials at all levels, information on schools, societies, churches, post offices, and various other data of local interest.

Only one city directory for the Town of Brevard was ever compiled.  Published in 1962, it includes the areas of Forest Hills, Fortune Cove, North Brevard, and Pisgah Forest but does not cover the entire county.  It is made up of five parts—advertisements, a business directory, an alphabetical listing of citizens and businesses, followed by the same listed by street address, and a telephone directory in numerical order. 

This Know Your Directory tip explains, "The wife is listed with her husband,
and also is listed separately if steadily employed."

There are also four pages of statistical and historical information with facts such as, “Total street mileage 15, with 12 miles paved and .5 miles under construction.  Miles of sewers (storm and sanitary) 15.  Number of water meters 1,450.”

While content varies in both business and city directories depending on the time and place covered, both can provide the next step in leading genealogists and researchers to more of the story.  Many historical directories are available online through DigitalNC, the Digital Public Library of America, and Ancestry.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.