'Sensation' caused around Hooper House in 1914

By Rose Hooper

Born in Tuckasegee on Dec. 5, 1879, Delos Dexter Hooper spent his boyhood days on a farm. He completed Cullowhee High School in 1898, attended Wake Forest College two years then graduated from Medical College of Virginia in 1905.

When he began his medical practice in Jackson County in 1905, he moved from Tuckasegee to Sylva. According to the Sept. 30, 1951 issue of The Sylva Herald, when he moved to Main Street, "there were few houses and no sidewalks. In dry weather the streets were dusty and in wet weather they were mud - like the other roads in the county." His house, now on the National Resister of Historic Places, was completed in 1906.

Dr. Hooper was the second man in the county to purchase an automobile, according to the article. The first was Dr. Alvin Nichols.

Dr. Hooper purchased his in May, 1914 in Asheville. It was a Ford and he paid $550 cash. As he drove up in front of his 8-year-old house, the whole downtown area heard the commotion. One gentleman thought it was "Gabriel come with his chariot" and fell to his knees in prayer.

The Sylva Centennial issue said the car "carried a sensation, especially wherever farm animals were concerned."

The Ford didn't have a battery and had to be cranked by hand. The front lights burned carbide, the rear, kerosene. The radiator and other trimmings were brass.

Before he purchased the Ford, Dr. Hooper made house calls on foot, or in horse and buggy. Many times he walked the railroad track over the territory between Whittier and Hazelwood to reach his patients.

He also used passenger trains, cabs on freight trains and, in many instances, helper engines between Addie and Balsam. "The friendly engineers would stop on Balsam mountain and pick him up, recognizing him as a Southern Railway surgeon for many years," the article stated.

While he practiced medicine for 46 years in Jackson County, Dr. Hooper never asked a patient if he had the money to pay. For the people of this county, Dr. Hooper's motto was "service above self."

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