The Tuckasegee River flows alongside several miles of U.S. Highway 74 West on the way to Bryson City — pretty as any mountain waterway you could ask for. It runs smack through the middle of Bryson City, beneath the Everett Street bridge, and past the stately white courthouse built in 1908, which is now home to the Swain County Heritage Museum. The Great Flood of 1940 is remembered here through sepia-toned photographs of individuals standing thigh-deep in water on Main and Everett streets, and of listing farmhouses and outbuildings that stand like islands in the swollen river.
Earl Kirkland, a Bryson City native and employee at the museum, points out the framed, yellowed front page of the Bryson City Times, which reports that the lovely midstream island where Bryson City residents loved to picnic and relax was ruined. The article goes on to apologize for the paper’s late delivery, because “the office was under 26½ inches of water.”
“Hogs, horses, cows — everything went down the river,” Kirkland says, though his family’s log cabin homestead, a mere 30 yards above the flood, survived.
Study the maps. Gaze out the wide, second-floor windows at the Tuckasegee running peacefully by. Then recall the time it ran amok.
Swain County Heritage Museum
2 Everett Street
Bryson City, NC 28713
(828) 488-7857
Why does this Haywood County town have some of the cleanest water in the state? It’s the result of the community’s efforts to keep the forests in its watershed pristine.
The spectacular views in North Carolina’s High Country aren’t just inspiration for writers, painters, and sculptors. Those landscapes — the rugged gray face of Grandfather Mountain, the vibrant fall leaves, the deep green meadows — are brushstrokes on Earth’s own canvas.
The sprawling vineyards and wide-open skies that stretch for miles across seven North Carolina counties offer relaxing getaways — not to mention some of the state’s finest wines — for Sunday drivers aching to escape the rush of city life.
Nothing lasts forever — and that’s what makes many of our cherished moments so special.
