MountainHeritage08Page6

Big Stone Gap is in Wise County almost in the southwest corner of Virginia in the heart of the Appalachian mountains. Mining of coal and iron ore seems to be the core of their economy, at least in times past. A growing industry is drilling for natural gas. During the afternoon we visited the Southwest Virginia Museum. The Southwest Virginia Museum is housed in a mansion originally built in the 1880s. The exhibits showcase the development of Big Stone Gap from the late 1870s. Exhibits chronicle the coming of the railroad, the development of the mining industry, and the lives of many prominent local citizens. The best part was the buffet dinner in the basement, followed by a historical talk by a local doctor - Dr. Lawrence Fleenor.

One anecdote the doctor told was about a colorful local man from Germany, George Joachem. When artist Al Capp came through mountains to study the culture, he named his Li'l Abner comic strip after George. The German pronunciation of Joachem was "Yokum."

October 9,2008 - Today we carpooled to the Ralph Stanley Museum in Clintwood, Virginia, some 40 miles north of Big Stone Gap. This museum is a combination of a history of mountain music and a tribute to Ralph Stanley and his bluegrass music career. It's state-of-the-art, interactive, providing headphones to listen to this unique style of American music. It's particularly appropriate to have such a museum in the setting of these rugged mountains where the music began in America. It’s unusual in the fact that Ralph Stanley is still alive and still playing his banjo - now 82 years old. He was the first person to be inducted in the Grand Old Opry in the 21st century.

The building housing the museum is an old residence built around the turn of the 20th century and thought to be the first brick residence in Dickenson County. Before the museum purchased the property, the old house was a boarding house and cafeteria, then a funeral home.

After the museum tour we had a nice lunch of traditional mountain food prepared by Linda Lou of Linda Lou Heritage Foods. She put on a cooking demonstration, preparing a batch of "chocolate gravy" and describing such things as pickled corn, stacked and jam cake. Her descriptions added a nice touch to the lunch. Tiring of stirring the gravy, she enlisted Fred to carry on while she continued her description of mountain heritage foods - very appropriate to the theme of our Mountain Heritage Caravan.

To complete the days activities we walked a couple of blocks to the Jettie Baker Center, a renovated movie theater where two men - Ken Childress and Jimmy Mullins - treated us to a mini-concert of mountain music, singing and playing their guitars and banjo. The theater had been recently renovated with modern equipment. Clintwood did not appear to be too prosperous a town, but they have done well with the state-of-the-art museum and theater.

The drive to and from Clintwood was spectacular. Fall colors were well on the way to their peak. An overlook provided some good photo ops.

October 10, 2008 - We left the campground at 8:00am sharp for the 60 mile drive to Cumberland Gap. The cloud cover of the last two days had cleared, and the views along the road were outstanding as we drove along that giant wall of mountains. This historic Gap in the long mountain ridge is situated on the Kentucky-Virginia boundary approximately a quarter mile north of the point where Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee meet. Mountains to the north are 900 feet above the base of the Gap. Mountains to the south are lower - about 600 feet above the base. It’s still a 300 feet drop to the valley below on either side, so would be a tough climb on foot, or on horseback, or in a wagon as the early westward bound pioneers had to go.

Indians used Cumberland Gap as a gateway through the mountains long before the arrival of the white man. Their trail through the Gap has become known as the Warriors’ Path. The first known white man to cross through the gap was Dr. Thomas Walker, though there is evidence of earlier unidentified men making the crossover. In 1775, Daniel Boone was given the job of clearing a wagon road up to the Gap opening the way for westward migration. That "road" was called the Wilderness Road, and some300,000 people traveled the road to the Gap and crossed over in the next 35 years. It must have been a arduous and daring adventure as those early pioneers crossed into the unknown territory we now know as Kentucky.

We learned upon arrival that the highway - US25E - now tunnels through the mountain below the Gap instead of crossing through as before. Completed in 1996, this tunnel made it possible to restore the old road to the same contour as it was back in 1800 when the pioneers walked through the Gap. Our guide described the reclamation as the most ambitious undertaking that the National Park Service had ever undertaken. So, the only way to actually traverse the Gap now is to drive through the tunnel or walk across like the pioneers did.

We drove through the tunnel to the Visitor Center on the Kentucky side where shuttle buses were waiting to take us to the Pinnacle. Under normal conditions one can look down into the Gap from the Pinnacle Overlook, but not this day. Fog was banked like a huge cotton lake over the western valley, and it poured through the Gap like a fluffy waterfall. The air on the eastern side was crystal clear. It was a beautiful thing to watch, though a bit disappointing that we couldn't see down into the Gap.

He and his wife came to Big Stone Gap to live with his parents in 1908. It was here that he wrote fourteen books, the famous being Trail of the Lonesome Pine and Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. Little Shepherd was the first book written in the U.S. to sell over a million copies, but Trail of the Lonesome Pine was his most famous. Only the Bible and Gone With The Wind have sold more copies. Fox also wrote over 500 short stories. While not too well known in modern times, he was famous in his time, and remains so in this little mountain town.

The weather continues to be gorgeous - warm and sunny with temperatures in the low 80s. On this evening we drove about 40 miles to Hiltons, Virginia for a Saturday night show at Carters Fold. The Carter Fold is really in the backwoods of southwestern Virginia. The Fold is run by third generation Carters, dedicated to promoting traditional mountain music and paying tribute to their musical Family, carrying on the traditions begun by A.P., Sara, and Maybelle Carter. They have a nice theater enclosed by a barn-like building that holds more than 800 people. There weren't quite that many people there on the night we visited, but almost, and they were all having a good time.

We had time for a tailgate party in the parking lot with sandwiches from Subway before the show started. There was also time to visit the A.P.Carter cabin where the family lived during the Great Depression era and the Carter store which provided their living, That's now a museum.

Then it was time for the show. A visiting bluegrass band played most of the music with fillins by the Carters. The dance floor was crowded with folks trying to keep time with the fast beat of the music. The show lasted from 7:30pm until 10:00pm. It was good family entertainment. No alcohol was allowed, and the host - A.P.'s granddaughter - invited everyone to come to their church on Sunday morning. Lots of children were participating in the dance. There was even one lady dancing with her dog in her arms. Needless to say, we were late getting back to camp.

Sunday Morning, October 12, 2008 - The Bergs and the Creightons attended church services this morning at the First Baptist Church of Big Stone Gap then drove to the Mosely Restaurant in Wise, Virginia, about 12 miles up the road, for lunch with the rest of the caravan. It was another beautiful, sunny day - warm after a cool night.

At 5:00pm a musical group came to the campground to treat us to a couple hours of country-western music. This, of course, was open to anyone in the community, and several came. Larry, our caravan leader, brought out his set of six dutch ovens and cooked enough peach cobbler to serve the whole crowd. One of the musicians was Tyler Hughes, the 15 year old boy who was our tour leader at the John Fox, Jr. museum.

October 13, 2008 - This was a day with no caravan activities scheduled. Several of the men left early to play golf while their ladies went to town shopping. Others stayed in camp to do chores like laundry, cleaning the rigs, etc. Not much to report except the continued great weather - not a cloud in the sky. The leaf colors change every day. While there's still a lot of green, the fall colors are coming.

That evening we accepted an invitation to a Shriner's sponsored "Bike Nite" at a restaurant in neighboring Wise. After some frustrating wrong turns, we found a Rescue Squad driver who led us in. For donations of toys to a crippled children fund we were supposed to get a free BBQ supper, but we were too late for that. Over 200 motorcyclists had cleaned out the free food. We watched a "loudest noise" contest among the bikers, then retreated into the restaurant to buy our supper. We did get some recognition for our toy gifts and a couple of free tee shirts.

October 14, 2008 - This was moving day - from Big Stone Gap to Asheville, North Carolina. We will long remember the friendliness of the local folks of Big Stone. End of page......