Musings from the Mountains

Well, it seems that Summer is finally here.  We have seen a couple of days with temperatures into the low 90’s.  I hate to see days that warm again.  When I first moved here there was a section in the telephone book that gave several vital statistics about Haywood County.  I remember the all-time high temperature at the NC State Test Farm on Racoon Road was listed at 86 degrees.  Those were the days!  Below are some of the other facts listed in the old telephone directories. (By the way, if you are a young person, the telephone company issued a phone directory every year with the names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone in the county with a home telephone.)

Haywood County has 13 mountain peaks over 6,000 feet elevation.  (The tallest being Mt. Guyot at 6,621 feet.)

Haywood County has the highest average elevation of any county in the Eastern US.

Haywood’s rivers and springs are its own:  all the water in Haywood County originates here.

Haywood County is a Civel War site:  Kirk’s Raid occurred here in 1865.

The railroad came to Canton in 1881 and Waynesville in 1882.

Two of the world’s largest sapphires were found in Canton’s Old Pressley Sapphire Mine.

Clyde’s 1795 Shook House was home of Jacob Shook. It was used for church services.  Bishop Asbury was the first Methodist Bishop consecrated in America and used the Shook House for services.

In 1891, Haywood County got its first library when a group of Waynesville women started the Waynesville Library.  In 1915 the Canton Woman’s Club formed the first library in Canton.

I wasn’t born in Haywood County, but I got here as fast as I could!