Hendersonville is in the center of a fine agricultural and dairying section. Henderson County is the largest
apple-raising county in the state. A variety of other crops are grown.
I
I
Progress In the Mountains
If you wan! to sco it along all lines — indus¬
trial, agricultural, delightful living condi¬
tions — then we suggest that you pay a visit
to Hendersonville this summer.
WE were talking to a resident
of Asheville a few weeks
ago. "Those folks over at
Hendersonville are peculiar peo¬
ple," he told us.
“How do you mean?” we in¬
quired.
"Well, it’s rather hard to de¬
scribe, but they seem to think that
everything in this mountain coun¬
try centers around their town.
They think they’ve got the most
beautiful scenery, the greatest ap¬
peal for vacationists, the logical
site for new industries and the
finest country for farming and
dairying.”
We were in Hendersonville re¬
cently and mentioned the conver¬
sation to Bill Hodges, the banker.
"Well, why shouldn't we think
so?" he demanded. "It certainly is
the truth, isn’t it?”
We didn’t argue. We knew it
wouldn't do any good even if we
were inclined to disagree with him,
which we had no intention of
doing.
"Mention another town in the
mountains that can surpass Hen¬
dersonville in any of those things
you have just mentioned." he chal¬
lenged us.
There was a menacing expres¬
sion upon his usually benign coun¬
tenance. We looked around and
saw the same expression on the
faces of Harry Buchanan, Ben
Prince and two or three others
who were standing around.
"Mention just one other town,”
repeated Bill.
"Don’t know of a single one,"
we finally admitted.
Their expressions became benign
again.
We doubt whether there's
another town in North Carolina
that has any greater degree of
civic pride among its citizenship
as a whole than Hendersonville
has.
Comparatively small percentage
of the population is native born.
By "native born" we mean native
of Henderson County. Check up on
the list of business and professional
men, and you’ll find that the ma¬
jority came from other parts of
North Carolina or from other
states. But it doesn’t take long for
new-comers to catch on to this
Hendersonville spirit. Within a
very short time, they too are firm¬
ly convinced that there’s no place
in the country that has so many
advantages as the capital of Hen¬
derson County.
And they never are backward
in letting you know about this fact.
During the recent session of the
General Assembly, we happened to
be talking to Sam Blount, of Wash¬
ington, N. C., in the lobby of the
Sir Walter Hotel.
"Where have you been?” we
asked him.
"Listening to Harry Buchanan
talk," he answered.
"What was he talking about?”
"Hendersonville,” said Sam
somewhat wearily.
But there's one thing sure: when
you’ve got that kind of spirit in a
town, it’s bound to be a healthy
thing so far as the growth, pros¬
perity and development of the
town is concerned.
And that's how it is with Hen¬
dersonville.
From the standpoint of popula¬
tion, it isn't such a large place. The
1940 census says that there are
5,380 people living there, but that
figure doesn’t portray the picture
as it really is. Including East Flat
Rock, Flat Rock and other suburbs,
we imagine that the present popu¬
lation of Hendersonville is well
above 10,000.
"What are you doing up here?"
inquired Mr. Hodges.
"Thought it would be nice to
write up something about Hender¬
sonville,” we told him.
THE STATE. Junk 28. 1947
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