Many, many years ago (Lord, Help Me, I’m beginning to sound like my parents!) I returned to Highlands for the Summer to find the wooden dam next to where my grandfather had built his house had been torn down. In it’s place was a huge mud puddle which was to become the concrete Mirror Lake Dam that stands today (for the record, the metal tubed railings only lasted through a couple of spring floods before the headwaters tore them down. Granddaddy Clarkson, a retired Major from the Army Corps of Engineers, simply shook his head and said, “I told them those rails wouldn’t hold.)
A few years later (or perhaps before, it was long ago (again, sounding like my parents)) I remember being horrified (eight-year-olds horrify easily) when I returned another summer and discovered the city fathers torn out the trees growing in the median of Main Street to make way for parking (this was before the Joni Mitchell song).
If you look at the archived photographs of either snapshots in time you’ll see the charm these two landmarks conveyed, now gone forever. But the fact is in both cases the change was needed. The dam’s purpose was no longer solely to provide headwaters for a grist mill (hence, “The Mill House”); and the town sorely needed more parking to handle the growth of the Summer Season.
That’s what’s happened with this Website.
http://www.HighlandsNorthCarolina.com was originally built by a homesick man wanting to reconnect with his town. However in the six years since I put the site up, many changes have occurred in town. Businesses have come and gone.
Almost all my time these days is devoted to my college teaching job in Dublin Georgia (http://www.hgtc.org/main/EdSrvs/Instrc/BTech/it/ewalker.htm ). As a result, I have not been able to keep the page updated as I would like. Therefore until I do complete the much promised update, please refer to the Highlands Chamber of Commerce at http://www.highlandschamber.org for information on businesses and events in town.
Visitors to www.ashevillenorthcarolina.net should go to http://www.exploreasheville.com
If you have comments or suggestions (especially if you have listings or information for new listings) please drop me an e-mail through the e-mail link to the left of this message.
I thank you for your patience, and wish I was with you, in your travels to my town.
In the meantime, Please read my "Statement of Purpose" below.
Best Wishes,
Eli C. Walker,
Webmaster@HighlandsNorthCarolina.com
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