Overhills (Images of America: North Carolina)

Overhills (Images of America: North Carolina) Review

In the early 1900s, Overhills emerged as an exclusive hunt club hidden among the longleaf pine and wiregrass forest, sandy roads, and rural solitude of the North Carolina Sandhills. Soon becoming the Overhills Country Club, this rustic retreat featured a clubhouse, horse stables, dog kennels, train station, post office, and a golf course designed by the legendary Donald Ross. At its height, Overhills boasted fox hunting, bird hunting, polo, and golf with personal cottages on the property commissioned by William Averell Harriman and Percy Avery Rockefeller. By the era of the Great Depression, Overhills evolved from a country club to a country estate for the family of Percy and Isabel Rockefeller, lasting well into the latter decades of the 20th century. Throughout its history, the resident employees and tenant farmers of Overhills contributed to a unique community in this private southern arcadia.

Early Tourism in Western North Carolina (NC) (Images of America)

Early Tourism in Western North Carolina (NC) (Images of America) Review

At the beginning of the 20th century, many Americans moved from farm to town, changing from agricultural employment to jobs in factories and retail shops. Along with these new occupations came a new idea called vacation. Ready access to automobiles made leisure travel, once reserved for affluent citizens, increasingly feasible and affordable for working class people. With its cool climate and outstanding scenery, the mountain region of North Carolina became a welcome refuge and ideal tourist destination for weary workers and their families. Western North Carolina, often touted in promotional materials as the land of the sky, hosts Mount Mitchell- the highest mountain east of the Mississippi River-hundreds of waterfalls, some of the world's oldest mountains and rivers, and abundant wildlife. The well-known Blue Ridge Parkway, numerous inns, lodges, hotels, campgrounds, and restaurants were constructed to serve the region's growing number of visitors. Early Tourism in Western North Carolina celebrates the rise of tourism from 1900 to 1950 in the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. Sites featured include the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Grandfather Mountain, Blowing Rock, Asheville, Mount Mitchell, Chimney Rock, the Biltmore Estate, and the Cherokee Indian Reservation.