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Readers combine to identify old photos
Thanks are in order this week to a wonderful group of sharp-eyed readers.
While the first mystery photo we published Sept. 28 – of a cemetery cleanup day – was quickly identified by Regina and Danny Fisher as Fisher Creek’s Dills Cemetery – the second two proved harder to pin down.
Danny Fisher actually provided the first clue when he stopped by to tell us about the cemetery picture and recognized then-county agent Paul Gibson in the photo we planned to run in the Oct. 5 issue. We then heard from Deanne Gibson Roles and Carolyn Robison, who both pegged county agent Gibson in the center of the photo and his assistant, Allman Brawley, behind him. Roles, who is the daughter of Paul Gibson, figured it’s a 4-H photo, and it turns out she was right.
Two weeks ago we got a letter from Joanne Bryson of Cullowhee, who told us that not only was it a 4-H project, it was her 4-H project, and that the photo was taken at her parents’ home in Tuckasegee, which was located across the river from the Brinkley Farm. Joanne is in the picture as are her parents, the late J.E. and Fannie Middleton Brown. Once we learned that, we realized we had another, dated photo of a girl and a large pig that was labeled “J.E. Brown, September 1954,” and we located the photo in the Sept. 9, 1954, microfilm Herald files. Unfortunately, the published information did not include the names of the others standing with the extension agents and the Browns.
Dorris Beck and her brother Claude Dills added some names. Dills recognized members of his Cullowhee High School class – 1957 – and Beck relayed the information to us. Dills recognized Clarence “Tunce” Taylor, agriculture teacher Fred Shelton, A.J. Ashe, Edwin Saunders and Morris Monteith. Others, including Lee and Nancy Porter of Brevard and Joyce Bryson Crowder of Cullowhee knew Jessie Coggins, Wendell Matthews, Kent Taylor, and Darrell “Fessor” Millsaps.
Our Oct. 19 road construction photo also produced a number of responses.
Among the first was former Herald Publisher Jim Gray. It turns out Jim took the photo and knew it was on the Macon County side of Cowee Mountain. Jim recalled the circumstances – a section of the road near Gold City had slid away and was being repaired – he couldn’t say when it was.
Luckily, we also heard from Judy Bumgarner of Locust Creek, who recognized her great uncle Thomas Jefferson Scott’s house and remembered walking past the heavy equipment needed to repair the road when she was a girl of 6 or 7. Her best guess is that the photo was taken in the early 1950s.
Our next caller was Olin Buchanan of Savannah community. He said as near as he can remember, the photo is of a sharp curve just below Gold City. According to Buchanan, the two-lane road connecting Sylva and Franklin was built around 1950 but was plagued by slides for the next several years. He thinks that section of the road slid off the mountain at least three times, and, based on the cars in the picture, he places the photo we reprinted at about 1955.
“They eventually drilled horizontal wells into the hillside and drove in pipes to drain the water,” Buchanan said, adding that one pipe stuck out and ran a full stream of water for years.
Thanks to all those who helped us, we now have a fair amount of information on several photos we can move from the “unknown” folder into their proper place in the files.
Those who missed the photos can view them online in the “Then and Now” section of our Web site, www.thesylvaherald.com.
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