State

Tar Hi.i-.i . Towns Mast General Store is a hub of activity in Valle Crucis. By Linda Kramer Valle Crucis This tiny Watauga County valley community still attracts thousands of visitors anxious to return to a simpler time. Nestled high in the Blue Ridge mountains lies Valle Crucis. one of die loveliest secluded valleys in North Carolina. Remarkable for its wild beauty. Valle Crucis is shut in by forest- clad mountains and deep glens. Its riser banks are bordered with impenetrable thickets of laurel that form, during all sea¬ sons. a dense evergreen shrubbery. There is a freshness in the air. Susan Fcnimoie Cooper writes in Mission Life at Valle Crucis: "It was a common saving at Valle Crucis that if a man tried to take cold after a thorough wetting, he could not bring it about in that high mountain region, v» bracing and healthful was the air." Although settlers arc known to have inhabited this quirt space since the Revo¬ lutionary War. it was religion that was responsible for its growth. In 1842, I.rvi Silliman Ives, head of the Episcopal Dio¬ cese of North Carolina, visited the cabin of the mountain miller, the only human dwelling for miles. .As the Indians would say. there was but “one smoke in the val¬ ley." Ives was so charmed by the area that he proposed making the valley the center of important work for the whole Diocese and to include a Missionary Station, the state's first divinity school and the first agricultural school for boys. By 1847 the church was cordially received by the simple backwoodsmen and soon many from neighboring hills and valleys straggled in to attend the first religious seivices of any kind held in the valley. From crude benches they sang hymns memorized for a lack of literacy. Some came on horseback, many on foot; the women always earning an armful of children. It was noticed that there were many more feet than shoes in the congre¬ gation. and it was said that religion saved the people from ignorance and poverty. I here are different stories of the nam¬ ing of Valle Crucis, which is Latin for "val¬ ley of the cross." Some tell that early one morning in 1844, the Bishop Ives, while i iding his horse from Banner Elk to Valle Спи is. looked down into the valley and saw, for med from the fog rising from the juncture of four streams, the shape of a perfect cross. Others claim the name derived from the shape of a cross formed at the convergence of the streams. Today. Valle Ci ik is is a non -incorporated com¬ munity with no actual recorded geo¬ graphic boundaries. If you ask 10 people how big the community is or how many live there, you’ll gel 10 different answers. It is estimated that approximately 7!> pet cent <>l today's population is made up ol sumtnei residents. According to estimates by the Region D Council of Government, the community's year-round population is somewhere around 100 permanent rev idents. I listorv records that four main families — the Bairds. Masts. Schulls and Taylois — were the first to take root in this fertile valley. Their settlement came about through the acquisition of land grants from the state. It was said that Joseph Mast traded his rille, his dog and a pair of leg- gins for about 1.000 acres of prime vallev land along rhe Watauga River. I «kI.iv. Ins gieat grandson, H. Mast, still lives in the valley. These original families developed fann¬ ing and maintained ownership by stead¬ fastly refusing to sell land toothers. I xH als jokingly referred to the area as “Cousin I'ovvn" because through years of internur- iviiig everyone was related. rhe main attraction in Valle Ciucis is the Mast Store. Built in 1883 by Henry Taylor and later ac¬ quired by WAV. Mast, the store was then, and is today, the valley's community cen¬ ter. gas station and post office. “Everything from cra¬ dles to caskets" is what peo¬ ple say Uie Mast Store has « al ¬ lied over the years, today's visitors are still intrigued by the store’s ec lei tit assort¬ ment of merchandise, from cast-iron pots, ovei alls and ax handles to hog pellets and brass washboards. II. Mast says he sold goods in the store when he was Iik> small to see over the counter. “My pocket was the « ash reg¬ ister. and I remember when my grandfa¬ ther took chickens in trade lot merchan¬ dise," he recalls. II. Mast was the last Mast to inn the store until it was sold in 1971. 'I he new owners shut it down until John ( iooper. a Hoi iila insurance agent vac ationillg in the area, learned of the store's history. Coop¬ er and his wife quit their jobs, sold their belongings and bought the store 1 5 years ago. The Coopers lived in the attic and set to work cleaning out inherited merchan- disc that included old boots, overalls and meat left rotting in the refrigerators. Cooper had bought into a tradition that grew after the Civil War: the Southern general store. “A place where the coun¬ tryman made contact with industrial and commercial America." as Thomas I). Clark wTote in Pills. Petticoats and Plows. "Here it was that he bought his first 'long' pants, drank his first liquor, compared notes on his romance with a I«h al 1н41е. Ik night a postage stamp, a coffin, a wagon, a necktie, a can of sardines oi a pistol." The store hasn’t changed much over Пмок»В*0 51шм11 The Stutc/Sejxembcr 1994 13