Piedmont Springs hotel, about fifteen miles from Morganton in Burke county, is open for the reception of guests during the summer months.
After leaving Morganton, going west, following the Catawba river, you have occasional glimpses of Table Rock, Hawk-Bill, and Grandfather, on the right, and the frowning Blacks in front. Marion is the last town, east of the Blue Ridge, where traveling equipages can be procured. It is a pleasantly located village, of something less than 1,000 inhabitants, having two hotels, a variety of stores, and a newspaper printing office. It is from this point that most commercial travelers drive to reach their customers at Burnsville, Bakersville and other points in Yancey and Mitchell counties. Sightseers, going to the Roan, fishermen and hunters, to the Toe or Cane river wildernesses, may leave the railroad at this point with advantage. The base of the Blue Ridge is only five miles distant.
ON THE BLUE RIDGE.
Leaving Marion, heavy grades, deep cuts, and a tunnel remind the traveler that he has entered the mountains. His previous traveling has been between them, through the broad valley of the Catawba. Henry’s station, which is merely a hotel and eating-house, stands at the foot of a long and steep slope. By climbing the bank a short distance, to the top of a small hill, opposite the building, the observer will, from that point, see seven sections of railroad track cut off from each other by intervening hills. If seven sticks, of unequal length, should be tossed into the air, they could not fall upon the ground more promiscuously than these seven sections of railroad appear from the point indicated.
The elevation to be overcome in passing from Henry’s to the Swannanoa valley is 1,100 feet, the distance in an air line about two miles—the old stage road covering it in a little less than three, an average grade of 400 feet to the mile. Of course the railroad had to be constructed on a more circuitous route, which was found by following the general course of a mountain stream, rounding the head of its rivulets, and cutting or tunneling sharply projecting spurs. At two places, a stone tossed from the track above would fall about 100 feet upon the track below; one of these is Round Knob, the circuit of which is more than a mile. The whole distance to the top, by rail, is nine and three-quarters miles. The grade at no point exceeds 116 feet to the mile, and is equated to less than that on curves. There are seven tunnels, the shortest being eighty-nine feet, and the longest,—at the top,—Swannanoa, 1,800. The total length of tunneling was 3,495 feet. During the ascent the traveler catches many charming glimpses of valley, slope, and stream. The view just before plunging into the blackness of Swannanoa tunnel is enchanting. A narrow ravine is crossed at right angles, between whose cañon walls, far below, glistens the spray of a small torrent. The background of the picture is the delicately tinted eastern sky, against which appears, in pale blue, the symmetrical outline of King’s mountain, sixty miles away. It is an interesting experiment, in making this trip, to pick out some point on the top of the ridge, say the High Pinnacle, easily distinguished as the highest point in view from Henry’s; fix its direction in your mind, and then, at intervals, as you round the curves of the ascent, try to find it among the hundred peaks in view.
After the long tunnel is passed, you are in the Swannanoa valley. The next hour takes you rapidly through the fields and meadows of this highland bottom, bordered by mighty mountains, until the train enters the Asheville depot.
In the center of the widest portion of that great plateau, watered by the French Broad and its tributaries, is situated the city of the mountains—Asheville, the county-seat of Buncombe. To obtain some idea of the location of the place, picture to yourself a green, mountain basin, thirty miles in breadth, rolling with lofty rounded hills, from the crest of any of which the majestic fronts of the Black and Craggy can be seen along the eastern horizon; the Pisgah spur of the Balsams, the Junaluskas and Newfound range, looming along the western; in the northern sky, far beyond the invisible southern boundary of Madison, the misty outlines of the Smokies; and towards the south, across Henderson county, the winding Blue Ridge. Amid such sublime surroundings, at an altitude of 2,250 feet, stands the city on the summits of a cluster of swelling eminences, whose feet are washed by the waters of the French Broad and Swannanoa. Close along the eastern limit of the city arises a steep, wooded ridge, whose most prominent elevation, named Beaucatcher, affords an admirable standpoint from which to view the lower landscape.
The habitations and public buildings of 3,500 people lie below. You see a picturesque grouping of heavy, red buildings, dazzling roofs, a great domed court-house, a white church spire here and there, humble dwellings clinging to the hill-sides, and pretentious mansions amid fair orchards on the green brows of hills; yellow streets, lined with noble shade trees, climbing the natural elevations, sinking into wide, gentle hollows, and disappearing utterly;—this for the heart of the city. Around, on bare slopes of hills, low beside running rivulets, on isolated eminences, and in the distance, on the edges of green, encircling woods, stand houses forming the outskirts. Three hundred feet below the line of the city’s central elevation, through a wide fertile valley, sweeps smoothly and silently along, the dark waters of the French Broad. It is through sweet pastoral scenes that this river is now flowing; the rugged and picturesque scenery for which it is noted lies further down its winding banks. At the east end of the substantial iron bridge which spans the stream, is the depot for the Western North Carolina railroad. From your perch you may perceive, wafted above the distant brow of the hill, the smoke-rings from the locomotive which has within the past two hours “split the Blue Ridge,” and is now on its way toward the station.