West Jefferson did not exist until local entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to run the tracks from Whitetop Mountain in Virginia to North Carolina. In 1914, the Virginia Carolina Railroad came to Ashe County. Virgin timber grew in the mountains, luring the Hassenger Lumber Company into the area. Small sawmills and lumbering operations were located "up every holler," so the tracks were expanded into Elkland, known today as Todd. Until 1933, the train ran daily into the county, and communities such as Nella, Tuckerdale, Camrose, Bowie, Lansing, Warrensville, Berlin, and West Jefferson grew up along the tracks. The timber was gone by 1929, and when the Great Depression came, the Norfolk and Western Abingdon Line made the slow grinding haul up the mountain every week. During the 1950s and 1960s, the spectacular fall leaf displays made excursion trains popular for tourists. The last train ran in 1977, and the tracks in Ashe County were removed, leaving only a few vestiges to show the train was ever here.

In 1904, when the Hassinger brothers ¿ Luther (L. C.), Will, and John ¿ came from the northwestern Pennsylvania county of Forest to the southwestern Virginia county of Washington with the idea of continuing their father¿s lumber business, they liked what they saw: thousands of acres of virgin forest. Two years later, they built a sawmill in Washington County and a company town to support its workers. L. C.¿s mother, Letisha, named the town Konnarock. In less than ten years, the Hassinger Lumber Company of Konnarock, Virginia, had employed over 400 workers, laid down over 75 miles of railroad track (they named their railroad the White Top Railway), built 20 logging camps, and sawed almost 60,000 board feet of lumber per day at its mill. Not only did the Hassinger Lumber Company cut timber in Washington County, Virginia, they also did extensive timbering in neighboring Ashe County, North Carolina, and also sawed timber cut in Watauga County, North Carolina, when the Deep Gap Tie and Lumber Company, located in the Watauga County village of Deep Gap, bought the Hassinger Lumber Company¿s Shay locomotive No. 3, sending its logs to the Hassinger sawmill in Konnarock, 50 miles away. By the time the blades went silent on Christmas Eve, 1928, almost 400 million board feet of the area¿s best wood had passed through the Hassinger Lumber Company¿s sawmill. This book contains the story of the Hassinger Lumber Company and its company town, Konnarock, as well as information about the Beaver Dam Railroad, the Laurel Railway (both located in the northeastern Tennessee county of Johnson), the Virginia¿Carolina Railway (the ¿Virginia Creeper¿), the logging of the Pond Mountain area of Ashe County, North Carolina, by the Damascus Lumber Company, and the Hassinger Lumber Company¿s logging operations in the Elkland (present-day Todd) area of Ashe County.

THE "VIRGINIA CREEPER" is a historically accurate (although the author admits having to use his "poetic license" a few times) novel about the rise and fall of the lumber/railroad town of Elkland (present-day Todd), N.C, the rise and fall of a lumber/passenger train, the Virginia-Carolina (aka the "Virginia Creeper"), and the rise and fall of a lumber company (the Hassinger Lumber Company) and the company town (Konnarock, Va.) the lumber company created.

Ashe County is a photographer's treasure trove full of southern Appalachian gems sparkling in the northwest corner of North Carolina. Within these pages you will discover 388 photographs brought to you by 76 professional and amateur photographers who were inspired to capture all that is Ashe County. These thoughtful, creative, inquisitive, talented photographers have sought out every nook and cranny of Ashe County to bring you their pictoral insight. They have left no boulder unturned in their quest to chronicle the historical life, times, people, places and things in this magnificent blue ridge paradise.

North Carolina artist Stephen Shoemaker and writer Janet Pittard have teamed up to present a selection of Shoemaker's paintings and drawings and the stories behind them. Known for his dramatic railroad paintings and scenes of life in the Blue Ridge mountains, Shoemaker shares the thought processes involved in creating his artwork, reveals his sources of inspiration (which often include events in local history or personal experiences) and points out clues and symbols appearing in his art. Together with 48 images, several of which were created especially for this publication, and occasional short poems by Pittard, the lively storytelling sheds light on an artist's development as well as the unique culture and history of the mountain region served by the train called the Virginia Creeper, which ran from Abingdon, Virginia, to Elkland, North Carolina (now Todd), from the early 1900s through the mid-1970s.

The 34-mile-long Virginia Creeper Trailer, which runs from Abingdon, Virginia, to the North Carolina line near Whitetop Mountain, is the most poplar trail in Virginia. Each year the trail is visited by more than 25,000 bicyclers, hikers, horseback riders, fishermen, bird-watchers, railroad buffs, and folks just out for a Sunday stroll. The trail offers a convenient and scenic getaway from the stresses of modern life. This guidebook will enable the user to understand the trail's origin as an important railroad and the natural world encountered along this scenic route. With photos, old train schedules, detailed maps, and es-says on geology, trees, wildflowers, fish, birds, and mammals, the companion will enhance the trail experience for anyone who travels this route.

When Ashe County Memorial Hospital opened in November 1941, it was the realization of a dream for the poor, sparsely populated county in the mountains of northwestern North Carolina. Building a hospital is a major undertaking for any community at any time. Accomplishing this in the waning days of the Great Depression and on the brink of World War II, while scant local resources were taxed by catastrophic floods and severe snows, was a remarkable feat of community organization. This is the story of the generations of supporters, doctors, nurses, emergency personnel and others whose lives are interwoven with regional health care and the planning, building and operation of (the "new") Ashe Memorial Hospital. This legacy, brought to life through 114 photographs and personal interviews with 97 individuals, traces the development of health care in a remote Appalachian community, from the days of folk remedies and midwives, to horseback doctors and early infirmaries, to the technological advances and outreach efforts of today's Ashe Memorial Hospital.

The mountain region of North Carolina possesses an uncommon grace and beauty, a landscape full of breathtaking peaks, lush forests, and winding rivers and creeks. Within this picturesque scenery, pioneering spirits settled in Ashe County and established communities in an environment both enchanting and perilous. Officially formed in 1799, Ashe County stands as one of the High Country's oldest and most intriguing areas. In this volume, containing over 200 black-and-white images, readers will journey into the Ashe County of yesteryear, a time dominated by horse and buggies, dirt roads, and early farms. Starting in the 1870s and stretching into the twentieth century, this stunning visual history allows today's reader to meet the resilient and rugged families that carved towns and communities into this mountainscape, to ride the Virginia Creeper railroad as it carries lumber and other goods to waiting markets, and to stroll along the banks of the historic New River, now recognized as a national Heritage River.

The mountains of Ashe County, in North Carolina's northwest corner, support an antediluvian mixed hardwood forest, rooted in nutrient-rich soil and watered by 40 to 60 inches of annual rainfall. From the highest peaks--approaching a mile above sea level--to the lowest valleys, through which flows one of the most ancient river systems in the world, trees carpet much of the county's 406 square miles. Species with nicknames like wahoo, goosefoot, ironwood, shadblow, bom-a-gilly and buckeye thrive. Others, dominant in the region for millennia, have all but disappeared in recent years. The author describes in detail their anatomy and ecology, and discusses maple syrup production, the local nursery business and the lore and deep value of heritage apple trees; 165 photographs are included.