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Tour of National Register sites planned
The Jackson County and Webster Historical associations are planning a Saturday, Aug. 18, tour of the county’s sites that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The all-day tour will depart from the Sylva Ingles’ parking lot at 9 a.m. Coffee will be served at Balsam Mountain Inn, lunch (Dutch treat) at the Jarrett House, and tea in the afternoon at High Hampton Inn.
Jackson County has 15 sites listed on the National Register, and the tour will visit 13. The first stop will be the Balsam Mountain Inn, originally known at the Balsam Mountain Springs Hotel, constructed in 1908 by Joseph Kenney and Walter Christy.
Webster’s Moore House (1886), which was built for Walter J. Moore, the only speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives from Jackson County, is one of 13 Jackson County sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places that will be visited during a tour this Saturday, Aug. 18, sponsored by the Webster and Jackson County historical associations. The event begins at 9 a.m. at the Sylva Ingles’ parking lot. For more information, call Joe Rhinehart at 586-0921 or Irene Hooper at 293-5456.
In Sylva, the major architectural landmark is the county’s 1914 Courthouse. Near the base of the Courthouse’s famous steps is the Hooper House (1900), the former residence and office of Dr. D. D.Hooper, an early Jackson County physician, which now houses the county’s Chamber of Commerce.
Dillsboro, Jackson County’s early railroad center, features the Jarrett House, earlier named by its builder, W. A. Dills, the Mount Beulah Hotel.
Webster, Jackson County’s original county seat, has six National Register properties: Webster United Methodist Church (1881) known for it striking Gorthic Revial rural architecture and its elaborate carpentry work; Webster School (1937) listed as one of the country’s most elaborate Works Progress Administration projects and built of rock taken from the Tuckasegee River; Webster Baptist Church (1900) was designed in high Victorian style, a simple frame building but with a beautifully open belfry atop a tall spire; and three still lived-in houses – the Hedden House (1902) a “locally outstanding Queen Anne Style house buillt for lumberman Ellisha Calor Hedden and the boyhood home of Gov. Dan Moore; the Moore House (1886) with its prominent front roof gable and decorated porch, which was built for Walter J. Moore, the only speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives from Jackson County; the Hall-Thornburg House (before 1850, 1875), which is now a late Victorian frame house, constructed around the original log building.
Saturday’s tour will include three of the five buildings are listed in the Cashiers area: High Hampton Inn (1932), which is built on the grounds of the summer home of Gen. Wade Hampton of South Carolina, and purchased and then rebuilt after a fire by Jackson County industrialist E. L. Mckee and his wife, state Sen. Grutrude Dills McKee; the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd (1892), an English-style weather-boarded structure with lancet windows and a sanctuary with open truss roof; and the Mordecai Zachary-Tolbert House (1850), a Greek Revial wooden building that remained unchanged from its construction until its retstoration and conversion into a museum now open to the public.
The other two Cashiers sites are Camp Merrie Woode (1900), one of Western North Carolina’s earliest girls’ camps that’s still in use with many original buildings; and the Backus Lodge (1900) a lodge built for E. M. Backus from New York, and constructed of chestnut logs. These buildings will not be visited on this tour because of road construction and location.
Two other historic buildings that were listed on the register have been lost: Western Carolina University’s Joyner Building (1925), which burned in 1981 and Sapphire Valley’s Fairfield Inn (late 1890s), which was torn down in 1986.
For more information, call Joe Rhinehart at 586-0921 or Irene Hooper at 293-5456.
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