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Ruralite Cafe: Published 7/20/00

By Lynn Hotaling



Town place names echo Sylva's past

 By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor
When Frosty mentioned "The Flats" over chicken pot pie in the Cafe last week, it struck me that a lot of current Sylva residents wouldn't know where in the world he meant.

I'm luckier than most mountain transplants in that Frosty's always willing to share his "Addie-cation" (that would be knowledge acquired during a boyhood in Addie, as opposed to the "education" he picked up in school) with those of us who might otherwise be geographically challenged.

It's about time for another chapter of that book on local places and names we started last year. This July we're narrowing our focus and including only information about interesting places in the downtown Sylva area.

Carey was in charge of actual research, and we consulted Rose from time to time. Here's a compilation of terms you might have heard but probably won't find on the 911 maps.

College Hill - The hill above the GTE office including Hampton and Rose streets. We know about that college in Cullowhee, but the "college" in College Hill refers to Sylva Collegiate Institute, a Baptist boarding school that operated in Sylva from 1899 until 1932.

Freeze Hill - This is the hill across from the old Sylva School (now Mark Watson Park) that includes Keener Cemetery. Earlier known as Sylvan Heights, it became known as Freeze Hill after the J.F. Freeze family built a house there. Their house still stands and is operated today by Patrick Montague, the grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Freeze, as a bed and breakfast known as The Freeze House. This area is sometimes called Cemetery Hill.

Old Sylva School/Mark Watson Park - Everyone knows where Mark Watson Park is, but some may not know that Sylva's schools once were located there.

Sylva Elementary closed in 1973 after Fairview opened and Sylva High closed in 1960 with the opening of Sylva-Webster (now Smoky Mountain) High. The Sylva High football field was named after Mark Watson, a popular coach at both Sylva and Webster high schools who was a 1945 World War II casualty. He's buried in the American Cemetery in Luxembourg. The Mark Watson name fell from general use after the schools closed but was revived during the 1970s by the Jackson County Recreation Department.

Tannery Flats - The residential area along Chipper Curve Road. The Armour Tannery Co. was located close by from 1901 until 1957. The area is also called simply "the Flats."

Upper Flats - The area of Allen Street above Chipper Curve Road.

The Bottom - The area from the Sylva swimming pool west to Josephine Street. It included the Triangle Park, which was located in front of the Sylva Presbyterian Church.

Lloyd Development - The area off of Savannah Drive that includes First, Second and Lloyd avenues and Oakwood Drive. It is named for E.M. "Beef" Lloyd, who owned the land and sold lots for the houses starting in the early 1950s.

Possom Hollow - The area around Morris and Spring streets above Massie Furniture Company. It is believed to have been named by Dick Wilson when he lived there in the 1930s. Wilson went on to become Sylva's postmaster.

Courtland Heights - The area above the old Jackson County Courthouse.

Rhodes Cove - The area behind Kel-Save, generally bounded by Sunrise Park and Cherry Street. Also called Rhodes Town, it was named for Professor Rhodes and his wife, Caroline, who lived near a big holly tree and hosted community Christmas parties complete with gifts for the neighborhood children.

Sylva storyteller and author Gary Carden grew up in Rhodes Cove and still lives there. He said recently on the PBS show "North Carolina Now," that he grew up in a "remote area" near Sylva. Rhodes Cove is considered practically downtown these days, a notion that illustrates just how much Sylva has changed over the last 60 or so years.

We tracked down a fair amount of Sylva information, we all agreed, but as we looked out the Cafe window, we realized we still don't know the origin of Evalina Street's name.

Evalina is the narrow, steep street just east of The Sylva Herald building. We've asked everyone we can think of, but no one yet has known who Evalina was or why the street was named in her honor.

Do you know? If so, e-mail us or call us at 586-2611. And if there are other puzzling geographical features around Sylva that you're curious about, please let us know.

We'll see if our Cafe research team is up to new challenges.

Back to Archive: 07/20/00.