A portion of the old stage road to Warm Springs is an inviting drive. It runs north from the court-house, over the hills and then down the French Broad. Exquisite landscape pictures lie along the ancient thoroughfare. The country residence of General Vance will be passed on the way. Peaceful farm-houses, surrounded by green corn lands, yellow wheat fields, clover-covered steeps, and dark woods, will file by in panoramic succession. As late as 1882, the stages pursuing this road were the only regular means of conveyance from Asheville to Marshal and Warm Springs. The road was as rough as it was picturesque. From the fact of its being hugged for miles by the river and beetling cliffs, this could not have been otherwise. At times the horses and wheels of the stage splashed in the water of the river where it had overflown the stone causeways; again, boulders, swept up by a recent freshet, rendered traveling almost impossible. A considerable portion of the road has been appropriated for the bed of the railroad, and all that was once seen from a stage-top can now with more comfort be looked upon from a car window.
Sixteen miles west of Asheville is a model country hotel, at Turnpike. For long years it was the noonday stopping place for the stages on the way from Asheville to Waynesville. Since the railroad began operation it has become a station, and when we last came through from the West it was the breakfast place for the passengers. It is situated at the head of Hominy valley, amid pleasant mountain surroundings. John C. Smathers, the genial, rotund proprietor, will, with his pleasant wife and daughters, render the tourist’s stay so agreeable that the intended week of sojourn here may be lengthened into a month. John C. is a representative country man. What place he actually fills in the small settlement at Turnpike, can be best illustrated by giving the reported cross-examination which he underwent one day at the hands of an inquisitive traveler:
“Mr. Smathers,” said this traveler, “are you the proprietor of this hotel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who is postmaster here?”
“Who keeps the store?”
“I do.”
“Who runs the blacksmith shop?”
“I do.”