Carolina-Themed Books Hit Shelves Hugh Morton’s Photos And Words Live In New Books By Jeff Eason Now that the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler, it’s the perfect time to curl up with that good book you’ve put off reading all summer. If you don’t have a particular title in mind, you might want to consider one of three new interesting books that share a decidedly Carolina theme. Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History by Anne Mitchell Whisnant, University of North Carolina Football by Adam Powell, and Forgotten Tales of North Carolina by Tom Painter and Roger Kammerer all shed light on our state’s history and provide insights on how we became the tourist and sports Mecca we are today. Super-Scenic Motorway Anne Mitchell Whisnant’s new book Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History sheds a whole lot of light on that beautiful 469-mile long highway that snakes down the Appalachian Mountains from Shenandoah National Park near Charlottesville, VA to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cherokee, NC. The book features 464 pages of text, seven maps and 51 photographs detailing the history of the Parkway from its beginnings in the 1930s to the completion of the Linn Cove Viaduct in the 1980s. From the beginning of her research, Whisnant had to battle myths and misconceptions to get at the truth of the matter. “When I started, I believed many of the myths,” said Whisnant. “The first book about the Parkway’s history I read was Harley Jolley’s The Blue Ridge Parkway, which primarily popularized the mythical history. Until I got into the archives, I had no reason to think that much of what he wrote was misleadingly simple. The key for me was to have a direct encounter with the historical documents—to let the voices of the past speak to me.” Whisnant first fell in love with the mountains of North Carolina and the Blue Ridge Parkway when she visited the Lake Junaluska area near Waynesville with her family when she was ten. After college, she became fascinated with the history of the Parkway and realized it had never been properly documented for the casual reader or historian. “When I learned that the Eastern Cherokees had fought the Parkway Construction for five years in the 1930s, I knew there was more to the story, and I set out to write about the Parkway’s complicated past.” Through her research, Whisnant found that the Eastern Cherokees were not the only ones upset with the establishment of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Ashe County resident S. A. Miller complained to President Roosevelt that the highway “wouldn’t benefit people who couldn’t even cross it to get to their land on the other side.” Marie Dwight, the owner of the Camp As-You-Like-It for girls near Little Switzerland, protested that she “should not be interfered with by the menace I feel a public highway to be, immediately adjacent to a resort where there are only women and young girls.” Whisnant also includes a chapter on Hugh Morton’s extended battle over Parkway lands, which lasted from 1955 to 1968, at Grandfather Mountain. Whisnant maintains that a highlight of researching the book was being “driven up the steep and curvy Grandfather Mountain road in a monsoon rain by then eighty-three-year-old mountain owner Hugh Morton, who insisted on stopping the car to get out and take photographs of the cascading water.” As fascinating to skim as it is to read cover-to-cover Super-Scenic Motorway is a must read for folks interested in finding out how one of the most beautiful highways in the world was established right in our backyard. Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History is published by the University of North Carolina Press and will hit bookshelves October 2 and is available for $34.95 in hardback. Forgotten Tales of North Carolina The ultimate bathroom companion, Forgotten Tales of North Carolina by Tom Painter and Roger Kammerer is a collection of short, weird and wonderful tales from our state’s history. If your interests range from sea monsters to moonshine stills to showers of blood, this is the book for you. Inside its 158 pages, Forgotten Tales of North Carolina has quickly digestible passages such as the story of William Morris of Polk County who lived in a cabin that had a fire that had been burning in the fireplace continuously for the last 150 years. He gained national attention for his fireplace fire and appeared on the NBC radio program We the People, telling how he kept the fire, started by his ancestors, burning in his log cabin. The book also features plenty of anecdotes about large snakes, odd weddings, and mysterious sights that appear in the nighttime sky. Many of the articles are taken verbatim from old newspaper clippings the colorful writing of the ancient journalists is a treat in itself. An 1880 Elizabeth City newspaper account of a battle between an eagle, a goose, a pit bull terrier and a woman determined to save the goose includes the passage, “There they stood, victor and vanquished. Then it was that Miss Martha Brothers, the true hero of the fight, came to the front and won the palm of victory. Seizing a rail, with one fell swoop she came down with a crash upon the eagle’s head and left him prostrate, struggling in the agonies of death, the victim of a combination to powerful to be resisted. Alas poor eagle!” Now that’s good reportin’! Forgotten Tales of North Carolina is published by The History Press of South Carolina and is available in paperback for $14.95. UNC Football Fans of Carolina football know what an up-and-down program the school has fielded over the past few decades, and this year’s 0-2 start has nearly dashed even the most diehard Tarheel’s optimism. For a booster shot of team spirit, you can’t go wrong with Adam Powell’s new photographic tome University of North Carolina Football. Published as part of Arcadia’s Images of America series, the book details the team from its beginnings in 1888 through the end of the 2005 season. The cover of the book features a 1947 photo of All-American Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice taken for UNC’s yearbook, the Yackety Yack, by then student photographer Hugh Morton. Other UNC stars featured in the new book include Kelvin Bryant, Lawrence Taylor, Julius Peppers and Amos Lawrence. “For those that aren’t familiar at all with the history of North Carolina’s football program, I think it will be very interesting to see how many outstanding players the school has had over the years, and also to see how successful the team has been over various periods in the past,” said Powell. “There are not very many people alive that can remember UNC football teams dating from the early part of the 20th century and before, so I think most anyone can find some historical interest in this project.” Powell previously authored a similar Arcadia book on the history of UNC basketball. University of North Carolina Football is available in paperback for $19.95.