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What's New - 2006
12/01/06 Design change: On the navigation bar on the left side of most pages, you'll notice two new buttons, Current and Society. Links to these new departments have also been added to the navigation block found at the bottom of most pages. Heretofore, articles in these categories were just floating around, accessible only from this page or in What's New. Get acquainted with these new sections, and watch for new material to be added. (The Contributors List, which previously had a button of its own, can be found on the Society page.)
Not only have we added 11 new photos to the Ponies on Parade gallery, starting here, but we've redecorated the old barn we keep it in, tearing off the old burlap wallpaper and applying a fresh coat of paint. Caution: the gallery includes, along with ponies, several goat-like animals pulling small wagons containing children.
Jay Sailors was a long-time resident of our town. In the early '90s he wrote a delightful essay on some of the many wonderous features of Cliffside he remembered from his youth, such as the sulphur well, the drug store and movie theater, and buildings under bridges. It's called “Remembering Cliffside...In the Old Days.”
Not so long ago, most of us didn't buy a Christmas tree from a tree lot or a supermarket. We'd go to the woods, find a nice cedar, and hack it down. Benjamin Bailey recalls one year's adventure of “going with daddy” to get a tree. It's in Flashbacks, under Memories.
Modern conveniences didn't pass Cliffside by. Why, in the '60s, the Haynes Bank even installed a drive-thru window! See December's Photo of the Month.
When the two 1916 hurricanes drenched Rutherford county, all the phone and telegraph lines were down, and R. R. Haynes wanted to know the extent of the flood damage all the way to Chimney Rock. He sent two men up river on foot for 40 miles to find out. One of them was Jim McDaniel. His daughter, Hazel McDaniel Robinson, shares the details. Read the Big Washout of 1916 in History, Articles.
Were you in the choir at the Baptist church in December 1968? Was your mama? We've acquired a beautiful color photo of the choir from Nancy Lucas, whose husband John was pastor of the church in the '60s. Click on the large version of the photo to see closeups. Can anyone identify all the members?
Don Bailey, who spends a lot of time cranking through microfilm of old newspapers, looking for Cliffside references, sends six stories from 1944 and '45 about some our servicemen. They're under History, Cliffside in World II, The Home Front, News Clippings, with the latest additions at the top of the list.11/01/06 Occasionally the Mill would send various hands (employees) out of town for special training. We've uncovered photographic evidence of two such instances. See "Continuing Education" under History, Articles.
Our town was an attraction even in its pre-teen years. In 1905 (or was it '08?) the first fiddlers' convention in Rutherford County was held in Cliffside, with over 30 contestants from as far away as Kentucky. A good time was had by all.
In December 1992 there was a grand story in the Daily Courier when our town clock went silent for a few months in order to be overhauled after 70 years of almost uninterrupted service. See "Cliffside's Big Ben...Goes In For Repairs" . And the Charlotte Observer picked up the scent and printed a story called "Clockmaker toils so too-quiet town can again hear its beloved bongs." Both are listed under Memories, News Stories
It was a big day at Duke Power's Cliffside Steam Station on May 11, 1948, when they cranked up one of the two new turbines. It was twice as powerful as either of the two original ones. Check out the Photo of the Month for November, provided by William Wallace, one of our most dedicated supporters.
How's it going around the old mill site? Are all those piles of salvaged material and debris being picked up? The answers: Great and Yes. Go to "The Cleanup" and catch up, and don't miss the album of 40 exclusive photos. (Exclusive, because you won't see them anywhere else.)
We've added a senior class group photo from the year 1940, in the School Groups gallery.
We now have over 100 members in the Cliffside Historical Society, and here's the list. If your name is not on it you're missing out. We need your participation. Join today!
Reminder: For a quick way to see what you might have missed, visit the Site Map. On a single page all of Remember Cliffside's contents are listed, grouped by Departments, such as History, Memories, etc. There is a Site Map button on the Front Page that will take you there.10/03/06 There is much new material in the Family Stories section. There are three new Family Stories, for the Columbus P. Moore, William S. Bridges and Robert C. Condrey families of Cliffside. And, in the Fred Robinson family, we've added a new page titled “Mary Elizabeth's Memories of Early Christmases."
In the Documents file are a couple of new family trees: descendents lists of John Jackson Moore and Samuel Bridges.
If you attend Remember Cliffside Day, on Saturday, October 14, you'll see that new houses are springing up like mushrooms along Old Main Street. Here's a sneak preview.
Fans of the old dam and river at Cliffside will like these recent photos taken at "low tide."
More Cliffside poetry has become available. There are four poems by Era Hollady Robinson, submitted by her granddaughter, Marilyn Moore Kerr, and Billy Ingram has contributed another poem about his “growing up” years in Cliffside. It's called “Ghostcut,” and any boy who ever went camping can identify.
Back in simpler times, say 1949, we were so easy to be entertained. October's Photo of the Month is proof.
And, in the Tragedies folder, there are clippings of the 1981 death of the man who took that Photo of the Month, Roy Lee Harris.9/7/06 Added Anita Price Davis & James M. Walker's new book "Rutherford County In The Korean War" to the Suggested Reading list. 09/01/06 A memorable and colorful figure of Rutherford County was Dr. Benjamin Earle Washburn. He grew up in Rutherfordton, became a physician and traveled the world, conducting important research toward the understanding and eradication of diseases, such as sickle cell anemia and hookworm. He was a prolific writer and chronicled his years in Rutherfordton and Chapel Hill in a book “To Everything A Season,” and his early medical practice in "A Country Doctor in the South Mountains." You'll love this feature from the Observer published 30 years ago and compelling excerpts from both books.
The Cliffside Historical Society is up and coming (although some of you haven't joined up yet). We've recently published and mailed our first newsletter to members (the Sept-Oct edition; there will be six per year). If you're not in on the deal, here's a free preview. Look within for news about Remember Cliffside Day next month.
We've added three more works by Billy Ingram to the Poems from Cliffside pages. Read The "Marble Shooter," "The Dreamer" and "Two Mysteries." Any other poets out there?
More of R. K. Hollifield's columns are now available. We've posted Chapters 21 through 30. Read about a civil war soldier's ordeal on the battlefield, learn when turkeys roost, and meet a Rutherford county man who invented a new-type cotton planter.
A news question arises in I'd Like to Know. We're sure YOU know the answer.
In the spring of 1916 tragedy struck on Main Street when a Model T, driven by Mr. Bud Simmons, ran into a train of the Cliffside Railroad. Read the engineer's account of the accident.
In Odds & Ends, a true artifact: a snippet from the first roll of cloth woven in Cliffside Mill in about 1901. It was handed down to Mabel Cargill from her father, Boyce Bridges, Sr.
And the Photo of the Month for September is an 82-year-old photo of a group of ladies of the Baptist church. Study the closeups of their faces and think of the times they lived in. You may even recognize one or two.08/01/06 Expanding her Cliffside Sketches, JoAnn Huskey has written profiles and memories of Roy and Nell Atkinson Hill, and their son, Sam, who married Alice "Polly" Goforth. The Hills lived on South Main in Cliffside for many years, then built a home south of town. Roy spent his career in the machine shop at Cliffside Mill; Nell spent hers in the finishing plant.
We hope you're reading the chapters by R. K. Hollifield. They're rich in history and facts about the county and the people who lived a hundred years ago (many with Cliffside connections). Browse through the index. You may find some of your ancestors. We've just added Hollifield's chapters 16 through 20.
"Our" old dam is looking pretty shabby these days, what with the wooden "lip" built along its top rotting and tearing away. We've got photos to prove it. Over 30 years ago, a construction company gave Cone Mills a quote for replacing that very structure. We have their letter and specifications. Could they be used again?
We'd always guessed at the year that old landmark, the Boy Scout Cabin, was built. Well, no more guessing. In her research, Joyce Hunter ran across this story on the cabin's dedication from The Forest City Courier in the fall of 1938. (It's in the "Changes in Town" section of In the News.) Along those lines, Grover Haynes, Jr. recalls being a Scout in the late '30s.
And on the subject of Scouts, here's a collection of young "troopers" from 50 years or so ago, as they posed inside the Scout Cabin. It's August's Photo of the Month.
07/01/06 We've included six more (and possibly the last available) “After Thinking It Over” columns by F. C. Thompson. They are for May and the first week of June, 1935.
This news report says all Cliffside inns and boarding houses are full of Duke Power workers who have just started building the massive new plant and village. Check the date, it was 1939.
And speaking of '39, we've scanned another Cliffside High yearbook, the 1939 Eagle. That was the class of Hollis Owens, Beth Hawkins, Fred Roberson, Gertrude Scruggs, Robert Lee Shuford, Glen Watkins and 25 more.
Another news item, from 1944, tells of a bad fire in Henrietta that devastated the commercial section of the town. It's in The County.
We hope you're enjoying the new feature in The County, the R. K. Hollifield columns. We've added five more. Look for Chapters 11-15.
At the end of the gallery Families of Cliffside 2, we've added a photo of and information about the four daughters of Henry Alexander Ramsey. And in the same gallery, a photo formerly labeled only as "Dinner on the grounds" is now identified as a gathering of the Volney Goode family.
The Odds & Ends section is growing by leaps & bounds, although it's sometimes impeded by fits & starts and, occasionally, ups & downs, not to mention the infrequent nips & tucks. This time we're highlighting a couple of items of Cliffside “jewelry,” very familiar gold-colored objects that weren't worth much in monetary terms, but very dear to the owner.
The July Photo of the Month is a nice “new” photo by Floridian Robert L. Harris of Cliffside Railroad's old #110 steam locomotive. That photo and two more of the engine from Harris have been placed at the end of the More #100 section of the Cliffside Railroad Galleries.
Finally, there's an Update to last month's (June's) POM.
In an attempt to win the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, we've redesigned the "Crimes" section, under History, and—for faster loading—split up the What's New entries, so that each year's material is in a separate file.06/01/06 Tired of that cluttered front page? Can't figure out what's new and what's old? We've done a little house cleaning, and devised a new set of archive pages to hold all the front page promos older than 2 months. Read all about it on the front page.
We've added an important new "room" in the County section (under History). It's a 47-chapter series of Rutherford County memoirs and history written by Robert K. Hollifield (1868-1957). These chapters, dealing with the period of around 1880 to 1930, appeared in The Forest City Courier in 1938-39. Fascinating reading.
For Cliffside Sketches, JoAnn Huskey has dug into her trunk again and came up with stories about the life and times of James Earnest and Eddith Martin Atkinson. Earnest worked in Cliffside Mill's spinning room prior to World War I. He would tell how he and the other young doffers would go outside the mill to play ball while they waited for the thread to wind and refill the bobbins.
In September 1942 there was a late-night disturbance at the Riverside filling station (where intoxicating beverages were regularly consumed), and a Cliffside man, Newell Pearson, was killed. Read the ensuing news coverage and examine the victim's death certificate.
Once, when woolly mammoths grazed across the river, regional newspapers were inclined—about every year or so—to do a feature on that model town of Cliffside. And so did the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in the summer of '53, when they published a full-page spread. It was written by Stover Dunagan, Jr. and the photos were no doubt those of photographer Roy Lee Harris.
June's Photo of the Month is another look at life in the Cliffside of long ago. What would you give to go back to those times and spend one day?
We've cobbled together a report with photos on the A May Zing festivities in Cliffside on May 13. Sorry you missed it, if you did.
A nice Reader Comment arrived from Virginia Padgett Biggerstaff.05/01/06 If you aren't aware of it, we now have a Cliffside Historical Society, of which this Web site is a part. We need your help. Read this appeal, then help in any way you can.
There's an Update on the story of Ruth Wilkins Camp that appeared only a couple of months ago. Ruth passed away on April 10. The update contains her obituary and a touching comment from a friend.
May's Photo of the Month is a lovely picture made not long ago by Butch Silver of the river just west of—and down the slope from—old Main Street. To the eyes of many of us, the river area has changed a great deal.
May 14 is Mother's Day, and to acknowledge the event we've scanned a 1924 Mother's Day edition of The Cliffside Baptist Booster, a monthly church newsletter—with advertisements of local merchants. Listed under Documents.
On the Saturday before Mother's Day, on the 13th, something exciting is going to occur on Old Main Street. It's sort of a street festival and arts and crafts fair with entertainment—including a May Pole Dance. Don't miss it.
In our new section The County, we have a survey of those awful days of the flu epidemic of 1918 in High Shoals Township. It's researched and written by JoAnn Huskey, Remember Cliffside's Foothills Bureau Chief, with some help by our Buck Shoals Correspondent, Joyce Hunter.
Also we've discovered a narrative on the history of Avondale and Haynes Mill from which you'll learn some little-known facts.
You'll be completely nostalgicized by Gene Ingram's memoir about life on River Street in the 1940s and '50s.
RGee Watkins comes out of the California hills with this new essay on how his grandfather, and then he, had the exclusive Cliffside franchise on removing warts. Naturally, it's in RGee's Corner, in Memories.
In Cliffside Sketches JoAnn Huskey provides us with tender and colorful profiles and stories of Fred R. Atkinson and his family members.
In The Thompson Columns we present six more of Skipper's "After Thinking It Over" columns from March and April, 1935. And on our front page, under Current Events, there's an announcement of his recent death.
In The News has a "new" Rutherford County Sun story (well, new in January 1919) announcing the progress of the new mill coming soon in Avondale, and some news on the worst days of the great flu epidemic that had just passed. Look for the story titled "New Enterprise" in the "Changes in Town" section.
Not least of all, there's a brand new book on our Suggested Reading list that we think you'll love, called Slow Road Home. It's by our friend Fred First who lives and writes in Floyd County, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.03/31/06 In 1923 The Rutherford County Sun printed a special "Land of the Sky Development Edition," an eight-page section devoted entirely to Cliffside and Avondale. It contained interesting articles on R.R. Haynes' family and other notables, and advertisements for the stores and companies in Cliffside. We've gleaned all that's scannable from this fragile document.
In our ever-expanding Documents section, there's a 56-page booklet published in 2001 on the occasion of the Cliffside Methodist Church's 100th anniversary. It has a wealth of facts about the church and about Cliffside. There are membership lists, info on former pastors, and many photos. (Don't forget to use the Bookmarks utility in your Acrobat Reader.) Provided by Mr. and Mrs. Guy Hamrick.
It was 1955 when Cliffside's merchants ran campaigns to increase their business and gave away a brand new car, and lots of money. Read Year of the Big Prizes in History, Articles.
April's Photo of the Month, from the Roy Lee Harris collection, shows how things used to be, when families and congregations would hold what we called "dinner on the grounds."
Three nice letters came pouring in and we've put them in Reader Comments. And there are additions to the Mary Quinn Womack Story and a to one of the Real Heroes articles (see the bottom of each page).
The section called The County is rapidly growing. What's new are a brief history of Florence Mill in Forest City, a 1917 survey of the textile "empire" of S. B. Tanner (which included Florence Mill) and some notes on the career and personality of Mr. Tanner.
Under Memories, in the F. C. Thompson section, we've added five more of his columns, from January and February 1935. Hear the news? They're about to put concrete sidewalks in Cliffside!
And some reflections on Remember Cliffside's fourth anniversary.03/01/06 From The 1964 Cross Directory of Rutherford County we've harvested 667 names listed on all roads and streets designated as being in and around Cliffside. They're in the "House Lists" section, and are presented by street and alphabetically. You could find, for example, that in 1964 Claude Bridges resided at 11 Poplar Street.
March's Photo of the Month is of a handsome group from the mill identified as "Spooler Help," from around 1912.
In Family Stories there is the chronicle of Ruth Camp and her family.
In News Stories, under Memories, this from 2003: An article from The Daily Courier announcing the close of the old mill, with interviews and photos of Selma Jackson and Herman Jones.
In Cliffside Sketches, JoAnn Huskey has added another chapter to the continuing saga of Cliffside with a profile of Norma and John Gurley. John and Norma have lived on the mill hills of both Cliffside and Forest City.
Old Cliffside is growing by leaps and bounds. On a recent Friday several photographers captured the moving of R. R. Haynes' log cabin birthplace from Cliffside Estates to it's new location on Main Street. We've put 20 of those digital images into a Flash slide show.
In Odds & Ends, there's a touching little artifact from long ago that some might remember.02/01/06 Ooops! We forgot to include—in the month-end barrage of new material—a VIA (very important article) regarding certain high school and college accomplishments of OOOFP (one of our favorite people), Geraldine Wall Evans. See “Everybody Said She Was Smart.” 01/31/06 The big attraction this month is another "Juanita's Scrapbook," vintage 1944. It's found under History, World War II. Previously we published a scrapbook Juanita Crawford McNabb made for family friend Mack Hendrick, then fighting in Germany. It turns out Juanita also made a second book for her brother, Ralph "Spud" Crawford, who was in the Army in Italy. On its 50 pages, this one has 100 pictures of Cliffside and 116 of its people (indexed for your convenience). The book was contributed by Phillip White who acquired it from Juanita's daughter, Peggy Blanton Hadden.
The Photo of the Month for February is a rare find. It reveals a significant moment in time in Cliffside's early history, one we thought we'd never glimpse. Special bonus: a scanned fragment of the past that's colored blue.
In the F. C. Thompson section, we've added his columns from the Courier written in December 1934.
Once again JoAnn Huskey has reached into her trunkful of writings and pulled out some more colorful stories for our "Cliffside Sketches." They include accounts of Annie Hill's first car (a '37 Dodge); Howard Parris' money-making schemes (delivering The Grit and peddling soft drinks); Mary Sue Atkinson Laughter's lifetime memories and adventures. We've also added a few photos to some of the existing stories.
To our new County section we've added a little history mixed with superstition and the supernatural in one swell package. It's called The Legend of Daniel Keith, by a good friend of Rutherford County, Pat Mendoza.
Did You Know? who wrote the words to Cliffside School's anthem. ("Three cheers for dear old Cliffside High...") We never gave it much thought, probably assuming it was, like Broad River, something that was just always there. You may be surprised to learn who wrote it and when.
And there's a new column called "I'd Like to Know!" If there's anything about Cliffside you've always wondered about and would like to know, write us, and we'll see if anyone can provide the answer. Our first wonderer is JoAnn Huskey. If you have an answer to anyone's inquiry, send it via email and we'll append it to the question.
Janna Harris has contributed a half dozen familiar sayings for our "Can You Speak Cliffside?" collection. They're starred in the "New?" column at the right of the list.
Not to blow our own horn... Oh, why not? Our book, Cliffside: Portrait of a Carolina Mill Town, has been doing quite well, in both sales and acclaim. Here's a report on its first six months on the bookshelves.
Copyright © 2010 The Cliffside Historical Society