History of the Land that Silversteen Built On

In 1888, Thomas and Wait Gash sold 21.3 acres from the estate of their parents, Leander Sams and Margaret Avery Gash, to Mrs. Reba W. Boardman for $1500.  The property was located east of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church which had been constructed a few years earlier.  It extended to present day Wilson Dr. on the south, bordered the road from Brevard to Wilson’s Bridge on the east and present day Maple St. to the west.

The Boardman House.

Mr. Boardman was a prominent engineer from Macon, Georgia.  The Boardmans built a large home that was considered the most attractive home in Brevard.  In 1897, the granite gateposts at the entrance were erected by stonecutter, Charles Kilpatrick.  The Boardmans spent considerable time abroad, wintering in Europe and later living there permanently. 

In 1912 they sold the property.  Newspaper accounts of the sale list R.G. and J.B. Stone as the purchasers of the property for $18,000.  However, the deed is to Fannie P. Stone, younger sister of Richard and Jefferson Stone, for $15,500. 

The Stone brothers planned to use the stately home as a men’s recreational club surrounded by an expansive lawn area for outdoor amusement, including tennis.  The Club House was to be equipped with pool tables, bowling alleys, shower baths and rooms for lounging, reading and smoking. 

A four-and-one-half acre lake would be stocked with game fish, have bathing piers, boat houses and boats.  A dance pavilion near the lake was to have a stage for theatricals, vaudeville shows and public speaking.

A September 6, 1912 article describing plans for the property stated, “Almost ten acres will be turned into a park, and walks and driveways will be built.  Benches will be placed at convenient places throughout the park and along the driveway around the lake, where the tired tourist may sit in the moonlight with his (or some other fellow’s) best girl and thoroughly enjoy the mountain scenery and the fresh breezes from the lake.”

The additional property was to be divided into lots for sale.  Property owners may have been granted Club privileges. 

Development on the property, including clearing the bed for the proposed lake and drives through the grounds was well underway by November 1912.  The intention was to be ready by the following year. 

The families of Richard and Jefferson Stone were both living in the Boardman House when it was totally destroyed by fire on February 21, 1913.  This disaster appears to have ended the Stone’s plans for the Boardman Heights Club.

The entire property plus several additional tracts were sold to Joseph Silversteen in October 1913 for $10 and “other good and valuable considerations.”  The Sylvan Valley News reported that Silversteen bought “about thirty acres of the best land to be found in the town. The purchase price was about $15,000.  The new owner has not announced what disposition he will make of the property, but doubtless it will be improved in a short time.”  Silversteen soon constructed his family’s new home, Silvermont, on the property. 

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.

Joneses Opened Quality Fabric Store in Brevard

Alvin and Frances Jones opened Quality Fabric at 37 East Main St. in Brevard in Spring 1957.  They carried a variety of fabrics—broadcloth, chambrays, cottons, dimity, percales, printed lawn, seersucker and sheers, as well as quilting materials and cotton batting.  The store also had a full-line of Simplicity patterns and sewing accessories from buttons to zippers.

Mr. Jones was also an authorized sales representative for the Singer Company and Electrolux.  Products from both companies were sold at the Jones’ Quality Fabric store.  An advertisement states that Jones repaired sewing machines and vacuum cleaners. 

Transylvania County Home Agent, Anne Benson Priest promoted sewing family’s clothing and home goods to the women of local Home Demonstration Clubs as a money saving strategy.  Mr. Jones would accompany Miss Priest and demonstrate Singer sewing machines.

Alvin Jones was a Singer sewing machine sales and repair man. 
He and his wife, Frances operated Quality Fabrics in downtown Brevard.

Frances Jones was the daughter of Benjamin and Zetella Capps of Henderson County.  She married Alvin Jones in April 1956, a year before they started their Brevard business together.  The store operated for about ten years.  Alvin Jones later graduated from Duke Divinity School and served as a Methodist Minister in the Western North Carolina Conference.

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.

Job Corps Program Helped Build the County

In the early 1960s unemployment of young people in the U.S. was twice that of older adults.  In response, the Kennedy Administration designed a program, known as Job Corps, offering free education and vocational training to young men and women ages 16 to 24 to improve their lives. 

After Kennedy’s death, President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty task force was able to quickly implement the Job Corp program.  Sargent Shriver, brother-in-law of the former president and Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, is credited as the founder of the program which operated under his department.  He modeled it after the Civilian Conservation Corps program of the 1930s.

In November 1964, it was announced that a Job Corps camp would be established in Transylvania County.  Located on the Davidson River in the Pisgah National Forest, the camp initially housed 100 corpsmen in mobile facilities.

At the dedication ceremony one year later, Edward Schulz of the U.S. Forest Service stated that the corpsmen are walking in the paths used by such men of vision as Dr. Carl Schenck, Gilford Pinchot, John W. Weeks and George Vanderbilt, carrying on their conservation efforts.

In 1974 Schenck Job Corps students painted the Sapphire-Whitewater
Community Center.

Corpsmen worked on reforestation, stream improvement, trail construction and wildlife habitat projects in the National Forest.  They built the Black Balsam Road into the Shining Rock Wilderness Area and assisted with projects at the Cradle of Forestry, which had begun construction in November 1964.  Corpsmen also helped with community projects such as roadside litter clean-up and landscaping at the Brevard Music Center.

During its 55 years, Schenck Job Corps has evolved and expanded to meet the needs of their students in a changing world.  The campus has grown to include classrooms, workshops, dormitories, a cafeteria, a wellness center and recreational facilities.

The original Cradle of Forestry facility and property was constructed and developed with assistance from Schenck Job Corps students in the mid-1960s.

Today the facility trains 180 young men and women in basic education, social skills and employment skills.  Programs in automotive and machine repair, carpentry, culinary arts, facility maintenance, painting and welding are available for students.  Schenck is the only Job Corps center that offers courses as an Advanced Forestry Technician and one of just two that provides training in Advanced Wildland Fire Management.  Schenck Job Corps students help fight wildfires throughout the United States as needed.

The Jobs Corps mission remains the same after more than a half century—to provide a no-cost education and career technical training program that helps young people ages 16 to 24 improve the quality of their lives through career technical and academic training.

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.

Rosman Tracking Station Supports The Apollo XI In Indirect, Important Way

This week’s Picturing the Past article is from a July 24, 1969 Transylvania Times story titled, “Rosman Tracking Station Supports The Apollo XI In Indirect, Important Way.” 

Construction of the Rosman Satellite Tracking and Data
Acquistion Facility in January 1963.

     Transylvania County has not been just a bystander in all the recent excitement of man’s first landing on the moon.

     The Rosman National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN) station had a part in that historic accomplishment.

     “We’ve had no direct responsibility to Apollo XI,” said Gary Dennis, Station Director, “but we have been involved indirectly through the Applications Technology Satellites and the other scientific observation satellites we have been working with for the last several years.

     “Sometimes,” said Mr. Dennis, “there are problems in communications with space missions such as Apollo.  The usual High Frequency Link is with the communications ships strategically located for this purpose.  But when this link is broken for any reason we serve as back-up using the ATS satellites we are working with as relays.”

     The 200-employee Rosman facility is primarily concerned with earth orbit scientific exploration and experimental satellites.  These are many and of prime importance to the entire space effort; the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO); the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO); the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO); the NIMBUS weather satellite; the IMF solar radiations satellite; and the Applications Technology Satellites for testing new ideas in space meteorological observations, new camera systems, and new communications systems.

     It is these new communication systems which have helped the space flight program in the past and which have earned the Rosman Facility a place when the history of the spectacular Apollo XI flight and moon landing is written.

     ATS-I, for example, has relayed television pictures of the moon landing to the millions of people who watched this feat in South America.  The pictures, relayed from the satellite high above the Pacific, enabled a large part of the world to view the landing that could not have done so otherwise.

     In more direct support of the Apollo XI flight itself, the Rosman Facility began a full watch on Tuesday afternoon as a part of the VHF communications link for the recovery of the space men in the Pacific.  With one other STADAN installation, the one at Mojave, California, and the Aircraft Carrier “Hornet”, Rosman constitutes part of the critical communications link which operates until the spacecraft has splashed down and been recovered.          

     This more direct type of assistance is actually of much less importance than a less-noted type of support the Rosman Facility has given the entire space flight program over the 6 years of its operation.

     By tracking and reading out weather satellites, the Roman Facility has contributed heavily to the meteorological knowledge that has made launch and recovery possible.  Space date, on solar radiation, on many geophysical measurements, read out by the Rosman Facility have contributed materially to the safety and the astronauts and the success of the many space flights.

           

The complete article is included in a small display on the 2^nd floor at the Transylvania County Library.  A presentation on the role North Carolina played in the space race will be held in the Rogow Room on August 15 at 6:30 pm.

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 828-884-3151 X242.

The Little River Novelty Band Of The 1980s Performed Music 'Just For The Fun Of It'

The Little River Novelty Band was organized in June 1980 “just for the fun of it.”  They provided free entertainment at Community Centers and for charitable institutions and clubs.  Vivian Edge was the band Director and Henry Pettitt, Manager.  

They were a group of senior citizens who enjoyed playing, singing and sharing the music of their youth.  Songs ranged from “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” first published in 1910 and 1912 to 1920s jazz favorite, “Sweet Georgia Brown” and Hank Williams’ 1953 country hit, “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”  They sometimes included polkas, patriotic songs or Christmas music.  “When the Saints Go Marching In” was their traditional closing number.

The Little River Novelty Band of the 1980s.

Band members included Julia Barton, Joe Brock, Bob and Ruby Gibeau, Christine Hamilton, Clyde and Elizabeth Hewitt, Melvin Hicks, Charles Jones, Ruth Mackey, Seva Mackey, Laura Misenheimer, Grace Orr, Mollie Pace, Christine Pettitt, Harry Sinnott and Virginia Spahn.

A band member on the washtub bass.

The band used traditional instruments including piano, accordion, guitar, banjo, mandolin and trumpet, along with drums, cymbals, maracas, and a tambourine.  They also incorporated a washtub bass, wash board, wash pan, broomstick and kazoos.

Over a two year period they put on 82 performances.  After being inactive for nearly three years the Little River Novelty Band reorganized in 1986.  They continued to play a less demanding schedule for the next couple of years before disbanding as older members were unable to participate.

This information is from a scrapbook kept by the band and now in the Local History collection at the Transylvania County Library.

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.