From Azaleas to Zydeco: My 4,600-Mile Journey through the South

Franklin

Franklin The drive from Cashiers to Franklin is remarkable. It’s about ten miles from Cashiers to the next town, Highlands. During those ten miles, the altitude rises about 700 feet through a two-lane mountain road. From Highlands, it’s twenty miles, mostly downhill, to the town of Franklin, the county seat of Macon County, North Carolina. On this stretch, Highway 64 literally twists around the Cullasaja River Gorge. The North Carolina Highway Department conveniently constructed vehicle pulloff areas so drivers can leave the highway and let faster traffic pass or simply enjoy the waterfalls at the highway’s edge. This is hard mountain driving with no straightaways and no places to pass. The thirty-mile trip takes a full hour of hard driving. Somewhere on this short stretch, I made an important crossing— the eastern continental divide. West of the divide, rivers flow toward the Gulf of Mexico; east of it, they flow to the Atlantic Ocean. During colonial times, the area west of the continental divide was known as backwater because the rivers flowed “backwards” (away from civilization and the Atlantic Ocean). During the American Revolution, the backwater men lived a little north and west of here but in the same type of country. They passed just east of here racing to meet the British at Kings Mountain. Seeing how rugged this land is, I appreciate the feat of the Overmountain men who walked 330 miles in less than two weeks, carrying guns and provisions, 117 to get to Kings Mountain. And I feel like a wimp complaining about how hard it is to drive on the mountain roads. Located in a broad valley, the town of Franklin has a brand-new McDonald’s and a bypass. Hard to believe, but a town of less than 4,000 people has a bypass. This is rural America. The nearest cities are Greenville, South Carolina, and Asheville, North Carolina, but they are not convenient. Franklin is remote. It is the largest town in Macon County. Macon County has a large land mass of 519 square miles, but much of the county is publicly owned land. The Nantahala National Forest, the largest of North Carolina’s four national forests with over 500,000 acres of forested park land, covers much of the county. Only 32,000 people reside in the county. After that thirty-mile stretch of mountain driving, I was ready to eat. Rather than stay on the outskirts of Franklin, I headed downtown. No McDonald’s for me, I went downtown to the Peddler Restaurant and got the vegetable plate—a generous plate of four vegetables for $4.58 including tax. You’ve got to like the pricing out here in the country. Historically, this is Cherokee country. Franklin is the site of an ancient Cherokee town called Nikwasi, “center of activity.” Nikwasi was first described by the British explorer Sir Alexander Cumming as the place where in 1730 thousands of Cherokee came from all over to meet him. Evidently things didn’t go real well at the meeting because the British returned to burn the village. The Cherokee rebuilt, but the American colonists destroyed it again because they feared that the Cherokee would join with the British in the American Revolution. The only remnant from the Cherokee days is the Nikwasi Mound in the center of downtown Franklin. The mound is probably 600 to 800 years old. When the Cherokee ran things, the mound was a spiritual center and had a building at the top along with a sacred eternal fire. The mound has never been excavated or farmed. Franklin caters to two types of tourists. The first are rock hunters: Franklin advertises itself as the “gem capital of the world.” The area historically produced corundum and gem-quality rubies and sapphires. But by the early twentieth century, the mines had lost their commercial viability. Since then the mines operate for the tourist trade. Franklin is 118 known as one of three main locations in the world for hunting gem stones; the other two places are in Burma and Thailand. Here, tourists can search for gem stones at a half dozen locations. The second type of tourist arrives on foot—hikers on the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail, known as the AT, is the 2,172mile trail running from Georgia to Maine. Macon County has forty-seven miles of AT trail. It is estimated that...