The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1895-10-24
WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA,
The Famed Hickory Nut Gap-Match-
less Scenery and Abundant Water
Power-May be Developed Some
Day by the Construction of an EIec-
trio Railway.

trio Railway.
Says staff correspondent of the
Wilmington Messenger in a recent
letter TO that paper:
Some OF these days an electric rail
way will be running through the Hick-
DRY Nut gap and then what a rush
there will be and what lavish use OIL
adJec!lves. There is a charter for a
steam or electric road. The highes,
gradient IS only 225 on the Spartan
burg and Asheville.
1t is really the easiest gap through
the mountains. The Western North
Carolina railway was originally plan
ned to go through it, but certain in
iiuenccs were brought to bear by two
then powerful families 10 have the road
go IN another direction and so i: went
through the Swannanoa gap.
There IS no place on earth save in
The Yosemite valley, where there is SO
much grandeur in 50 small space as in
Hickory Nut gap, or rather near
Chimney Rock. State Geologist Holmes
says 1t and the Nantahala gorge sur
pass anything in this State or indeed
east OF the Rocky Mountains. Pro
lessor HIlyer, OF the United States
geological survey, has just completed
a set OF photographs of scenes in the
gap. Some of these are to be shown,
as transparcncles, at the Atlanta expo
sitiOn.
How water power goes to waste in
this State. 1t is said that on Broad river
IN course of eight miles near Chin
ney Rock, there is Ioo, 900 horse power.
Perhaps 1t may be utilized in the
transmission of electric power.
a line of railway through the gap; a
distance of only forty miles from
Rutherfordton to Asheville, with con
nectIons beyond, will put WlImign-
ton a great deal nearer the great
grainfields of the West than any other
port. Look at a map for proof of
this. Some say why does Mt the
Seaboard Air Line build this forty
miles, which it is claimed it can do
tor 100000. II answer it may be
said that this line would literally
be bottled up at Asheville. It is bot
tied at Rutherfordton now. Ofcourse,
the Southern and the Seaboard systems
are always at daggers' points. When
these agree look out for the millennium,
for it is nigh at hand. Any way
there is water-power, plenty of the
finest timber and no end of the finest
scenery going to waste daily in the
Hickory Nut gap.
The Hickory Nut water fall is the
highest in the Atlantic States. A
mill of the most primitive construction
imaginable used to stand on the noun
tain top near the starting point of the
fall. One day this year Maj. Turner,
the proprietor of the Esmeralda Inn,
who was watching his own mill on
Broad river, during sudden rise
happened to look up some 1900 fee,
and saw the old mill go over the fall
1t must have been only splinters after
striking the bottom some 90 feet be
low.
1t was for some years the boast Of
some people that North Carolina, which
"fills all the blanks in the census re-
ports" had real, sure enough volca
no. That was "Old Bald Mountain ~
But its quaking was due to rock slips
Professor Holmes says of this there is
no doubt. The smoke which the ex-
plorers say they saw there was all in the
imagination. The rocks slipped so as
to leave caves ten feet wide and eighty
feet deep. Some of these were formed
twenty years ago, and some at late,
date, Professor Holmes says. aba,
cave" which is far up one side of the
"gap," has an entrance 50 feet wide
and IS feet high, like big church
door. This is 1900 feet up the noun.
tain side. Strange to say, it has never
been thoroughly explored. Its size i:
exaggerated, however.