Anyway, what happened was that [it was] very, very hot down there in the
summertime. And back in those days you had a lot of malaria and yellow fever and
that sort of thing. The people living down in Charleston liked to get out of there in
the summertime and come up to the cool mountains. It was just about 250 miles
from Charleston up to the mountains. It was nice rolling country most of the way,
but all of a sudden you hit the mountains. You just kind of jumped up on this little
plateau up there and at night it was nice and cool, [with] no mosquitoes and that sort
of thing.

So these people were very powerful and very influential and quite a few of them
were on the board of directors of the Southern Railroad. They said to each other,
"Why not make it nice and easy to get to the mountains? Let's build a railroad." It
was very sensible, actually. Here are Columbia and Spartanburg and Greenville, all
right there out of Charleston, which was the principal seat of the state. So they built
a railroad to the mountains. But then they had a problem because they had a
terrible grade to go up. It was an engineering feat to marvel at for that time. But
they did build a railroad and they built it right on up to an area called Flat Rock,
which is about three miles south of Hendersonville.

Flat Rock was named that because [it is] one of the biggest pieces of granite in the
world. It was a landmark on the Indian trail to get salt from the ocean. Indian
tribes would camp here, in peace and harmony with each other; there was a truce
around Flat Rock.

These wealthy people came in and bought this beautiful land [which was] cool and
comfortable in the summertime. Everybody had at least 500 acres and they built
summer cottages that consisted of 15 or 20 bedrooms. [Their houses had] all the
fancy gingerbread on them and they had a crew of about a half a dozen of the local
people there to act as caretakers and farmers and gardeners. They also brought their
slaves--later their employees--who they treated very, very well. But with the railroad
in place, right after all the cold weather [was] gone--let us say the last of April--the
families would get on the train with their whole entourage of servants and come up
to the summer place in the mountains. The families stayed there until probably the
end of September; it varied, really.

What was interesting was that they set up a commuter system. On Friday evening
a train came northwest out of Charleston at about 1:00 in the afternoon. It was the
only time of the week it was scheduled to run in that direction. And this was a fast
train; it really moved. It ran straight from Charleston, 250 miles, right up in the
mountains. It made it up to Flat Rock in about five hours, which in those days was
really moving. They did not care where it went from there, [although] I think it did
go on over into Asheville. And then the train turned around. On Monday morning
they left Flat Rock at about 6:30 or 7:00, and made the mad dash back to Charleston


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