Events
Calendar
2023
Wednesday, June 21, 4
PM -- Archeology of Our Community Center: A Working Barn is Raised, c1887. at the Pavilion, Wolf Laurel
Community Center.
Presented by Taylor Barnhill, researcher for the Appalachian Barn Alliance and member of the WLHS board
Taylor Barnhill will present the results of his
documentation of the c1887 Willis Barn that today serves as the Wolf
Laurel Community Center. This is the most thorough examination
ever made of the construction techniques and special characteristics of
this nearly century and a half old barn, conducted by a master
architectural archeologist.
Barnhill, Wolf Laurel resident and the foremost expert on the
architecture of Southern Appalachian barns, has been documenting the
barn for the last year. The barn contains many characteristic
architectural features and construction techniques of late 19th century
barns, but has special features as well.
Our barn's builder – Oscar Willis – was a late nineteenth century
farmer-entrepreneur who owned the largest portion of the Madison County
side of today’s Wolf Laurel, where he raised his family, farmed the
slopes, and ran a grain and saw mill. Two of his family’s homes
and our magnificent barn remain, testifying to the extraordinary skills
of the barn builders of the late nineteenth century and to our land’s
agricultural past.
This program is co-sponsored with the Wolf Laurel Property Owners Association and the Appalachian Barn Alliance.
The Pavilion is on the grounds of the Wolf
Laurel Community Center at 91 Village
Lane, Mars Hill.
Wednesday, July 19, 4 PM -- A Railroad to Bald Mountain, c1905. at the Wolf Laurel
Country Club Dining Room.
Presented by Gene Woolf, Wolf Laurel resident and historic railroad enthusiast
In 1900, construction on the Clinchfield Railroad (from Cincinnati
through Johnson City and Erwin to South Carolina) breached the Bald
Mountains through the Nolichucky River water gap and reached Huntdale,
North Carolina. Shortly thereafter, on the steps of the Yancey
County Courthouse in Burnsville, the Buck family purchased the tract of
land known as Bald Mountain Boundary with its eight to twelve million
feet of hardwood. In 1903, the North Carolina legislature
incorporated the Caney River Railway to run the eighteen miles between
Huntdale and the meadow across from today’s Buck House at the Yancey
County gate to Wolf Laurel.
Woolf will talk about turn of the twentieth century Southern
Appalachian logging as well as that railway and the narrow gauge
extension that ran behind the Buck House and up toward Big Bald to carry
the harvest of hardwood to the markets of the Eastern United
States. Don’t miss this chance to see today’s artifacts from Wolf
Laurel’s industrial past.
Wolf
Laurel Country Club is at 2607 Wolf Laurel
Road. The program is a public event open to all courtesy of the Wolf Laurel Country Club.
Tuesday, August 8, 7
PM -- The Day that Changed the Mountains, August 5, 2003: the Coming of I-26. at the Ebbs Chapel Performing Arts Center Auditorium.
Presented by Rob Amberg, documentary photographer and author of The New Road and other books.
One of the most eagerly
anticipated moments in the history of Wolf Laurel occurred twenty years
ago this summer. On that momentous day, residents joined
ceremonies at the nearby highway rest area and visitor’s center to hear
Michael Easley, the Governor of North Carolina, dedicate the new section
of interstate between the junction of US23/US19 north of Mars Hill and
Sams Gap at the North Carolina/Tennessee border. Then, the new
road opened for traffic.The new highway was
instantly proclaimed a North Carolina Scenic Highway, and the rest area
at Mile 6 became a national award winner. Through the efforts of
Bald Mountain Development Corporation president Lee Smith, Exit 3 bore
the name “Wolf Laurel.” Wolf Laurel residents gathered under the
exit sign for a photograph and to declare in triumph the melting of time
required to reach Asheville to the south and Johnson City to the
north.
For others in these
mountains it was a day of change also. The magnificent engineering
achievement of this road had also taken cherished homes, ended their
isolation, and changed their lives for better and for worse. So
many lives would never be the same after that day twenty years
ago.
We will mark the
twentieth anniversary with a program featuring Rob Amberg.
Amberg's book tells the comprehensive story of the massive construction
project that delivered that magnificent section of highway, and depicts
in story and photographs the forever altered lives of the people of
Madison County displaced by that road.
This program is co-sponsored with the Ebbs Chapel Community Center
Ebbs Chapel Performing Arts Center Auditorium is at 281 Laurel Valley Rd, Mars Hill.
Note the evening time and day variation to accommodate our Upper Laurel neighbors and others who find evening more convenient.
Wednesday, September 6, 4-6
PM -- Annual Society Business Meeting and WLHS Member Picnic, location TBA
To wrap up the summer schedule we will once again gather for our
annual picnic celebration.
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