An installment in our Appalachian Foodways series If you’ve ever visited any of the restored mills scattered across Appalachia, you’ve probably thought what most visitors do: What a pretty place. The wheel turns. Somebody takes a picture. It’s easy to see why mills end up on postcards and calendars. But the people who built them weren’t interested…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. The letter had probably arrived days ago. That was the frustrating part. A family living along a mountain road in 1900 might know that a son in Roanoke had written or that a husband working railroad construction had mailed word he was coming home. The letter had likely…
An installment in our Blue Ridge Travel series. Mount Airy NC: A Town That Feels Like Mayberry The bronze statue outside the Andy Griffith Playhouse catches the last light of day. Sheriff Andy Taylor holds Opie’s hand, fishing poles slung over their shoulders, just as they did in the opening credits of The Andy Griffith…
An installment in our Blue Ridge Travel series. In Meadows of Dan, Virginia, the Blue Ridge Parkway passes a weathered frame building that has stood since 1892. Travelers know it as the Mayberry Trading Post. The name catches the eye because it recalls Andy Griffith’s television Mayberry, but this place is real. Its story is…
An installment in our Blue Ridge Travel series. A Valley with a Funny Name While America was toasting its new transcontinental railroad in Utah on May 10, 1869, Roanoke, VA, was just a mountain crossroads called Big Lick. Named for the large natural salt deposit, this lick attracted wildlife in droves: buffalo, deer, and elk,…
An installment in our Blue Ridge Travel series. It’s a quiet morning in Fries, Virginia, and the New River is doing what it’s always done—slipping past the banks with ageless calm. The cotton mill that gave the town its name and purpose is long gone, but you’d swear you can still hear the echoes. Not…
An installment in our Appalachian Foodways series They call it that old mountain dew, And them that refuse it are few, You may go ’round the bend, But you’ll come back again, For that good old mountain dew The folks of the Blue Ridge Mountains take their moonshine, aka mountain dew, seriously. Moonshine liquor was…
An installment in our Blue Ridge Travel series. Porta-Potty, Johnny-on-the-Spot, Outhouse, Portable toilet. Whatever you call them, they all have one thing in common: they stay put once you set them up. They don’t go anywhere. Unless you are in Independence, VA, on the second Sunday in October, when you will see outhouses running down…