Today’s guest post was written by Arnold.
This is a picture of Hightower School where my mother went to elementary school and later where I went to church as a youth.
Note that 5 of the children appear to be wearing attire made from the same plaid cloth. Were they all related? Also notice the wooden shakes on the roof and the “Hightower” crudely written on the wall above the shed roof in front.
I don’t know when this picture was taken but I think the school was established in the mid to late 1920s. Mommy was born in 1924 so she would have started there around 1930 and would have started at Almond High School around 1938. Around 1943-44 Almond High School was torn down and Almond Elementary School at Lauada was built where all the children in the western part of Swain County were bused. (the High Schoolers were bused to Bryson City).
Mommy graduated the 11th grade at Almond High (High schools then graduated their students from 11 grade) around 1941. She could very well be in this picture
I counted 66 kids and adults in the picture. Some of those who appear to be adults are probably just older children. Children grew up faster then!
Ties and overhauls! Some kids are smartly dressed as if going to Sunday School. Others to the cornfield. All of them are probably related to me in one way or another but I can’t identify a single one of them. I have my suspicions but nothing concrete. That is sad!
Sadder still is that not only is the school gone but the whole community is a shell of its former self. The building that housed the Hightower School is still there. I think John Breedlove bought the property and donated it to the foundation of Hightower Baptist Church as an alternative to Brush Creek Church on the other side of the Little Tennessee River. It was over 10 miles by vehicle, if you were so fortunate, to Brush Creek via Lost Bridge up in Macon County or you could drive the other way to the next bridge downriver at Lauada which is over 13 miles.
A swinging bridge at Needmore was provided for folks who were able to walk but not many people lived close enough to it to take that route especially in winter when it would be icy and spring when the river climbed out of its banks. Summer storms occur enough that walking that distance, especially in your Sunday go-to-meetins, was a gamble. Fall is just a pleasant stroll if you are young and in good health but that class of people are far less inclined to attend worship services.
This is more the end of a school than the beginning but more than a school ended there.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about the old Hightower School as much as I did. Even though the photo wasn’t taken in my county it’s close enough that I’m positive there’s a direct connection to me and mine.
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It’s interesting how no one smiles in old photos
Great post
we call the etowah river here in Lumpkin county, the high tower River, God bless granny ✝️♥️
I didn’t know Ed Ammons had a brother named Arnold 😉
Great post and some nice observations by readers; thanks to Carl Collins for pointing out the Southern Railways Murphy Branch book in particular.
This is a part of the county that I know far less about than I’d like, even though some of my mother’s DeHart ancestors are an integral part of the Needmore area. Tipper, it seems like a fair bet that some of those kids would have had some of your Truett ancestors blood coursing through them.
I took a quick look to the land ownership; from a quick look, it appears that the church property may have been part of the 3461 acres of land acquired by Duke Power that was transferred to Crescent Resources in 1999. The bulk of that tract was transferred to the State of NC in 2004, but the church property itself was cut out and went to Trustees of Hightower Baptist Church, Wayne Ammons, Melvin Jones and J.T. Ammons (Swain deed book 285, page 988)
I to enjoyed this story Miss Tipper and hearing of all the history. I love looking at old pictures trying to pick out people I know or that I might not know but am related to. I also like looking at how things use to be back in the day as they are frozen in time in a picture.
(Dang it. My post keeps getting deleted when I try to post.)
I wonder how many DeHarts, Tabors, Weavers, Condras and Hutchinses I see in that photo. I can almost guarantee that I’m looking at cousins that I never met or knew. My Pa was born in the Needmore community. His pa is buried at Maple Springs Baptist Church. His mother was a Tabor and grew up in Brushy Creek, a cove was once populated only by Tabors, I think. I know that her grandparents and parents are buried in the Tabor family cemetery as are many of their offspring and their families.
Prayers continue for Miss Louzine.
God’s Blessings to all . . .
There was also a school at Maple Springs and it was in the same building as the church however the church has been in existence since the mid 1800s. Maple Springs had both a Baptist and Methodist Church. The attendees couldn’t get along but they were buried in the same cemetery.
My parents were born in 1908 and 1912. They used to tell stories about their schools and walking long distances to get there. Both talked about always having cold feet in the winter, but they both grew up healthy and lived long lives, and both were ten times more literate than today’s adults. So true that more than old schools ended. Sad.
My mother was born in 1921 and graduated high school in the 11th grade. She started one school and then they moved so she finished in another. Both schools she attended are no longer there and I don’t have any pictures of her school years. My dad born in 1915 attended a one room schoolhouse until he had to quit in the 6th grade to work on the farm. Fortunately, it is still standing because it sits on land where a home is located nearby, and the family wanted to keep it because so many in the neighborhood had folks that attended it. Thank you to Arnold and also to you Tipper for sharing this post.
My daddy was born in 1922 and like your daddy he had to quit school in the 8th grade, his parents were sharecroppers. He attended several different schools, some more than once. One school he attended and is still standing was Ebenezer School in Anderson County, SC.
Additional comments to my comment. Jim Casada mentions the Thomason book as a resource another surprising source is “Southern Railway’s Murphy Branch “ by Michael George. It is a history of the branch that ran from Asheville to Murphy. In section on the removal of the branch that ran from Bushnell (under Fontana Lake to the town of Fontana to serve the cooper mine and logging interests. The main line also had to be relocated. The chapter on relocation has pictures of several schools and I know the new Almond school and possibly the old one. The Needmore area is to the south of Almond. There is information on other areas on the way to Murphy. He also wrote another book “Louisville and Nashville Atlanta Division “ which describes the L&N coming into Murphy from the west.
I love those old photos and stories. I have so many saved through the years, and an uncle went almost door to door to obtain and save photos related to our family. I am fortunate in that I can recognize photos of 2x great uncles and aunts from so much exposure to different images of them. History has some of my ancestors migrating from NC around 1840. Sad to see communities disappear and sometimes the government must even move us to use land for the “better good.” I have found many of my ancestors moved to make room for interstates and the Bluestone Dam. Thanks to Arnold for giving us such a great peek into the past.
Interesting post, grew up in Swain County and went to elementary school at Whittier on the eastern end of the county. I graduated from Swain County High School in 61 a year after Jim Casada. His comment about Mrs. Thomason applies to my family she taught two of my maternal uncles, myself and my wife. My Mother taught at Lauada Elementary School the last school in 40 yrs of teaching. It was built by the TVA as part of the relocation caused by the building of Fontana Dam and Lake. After the construction of two new elementary schools, one east of Bryson City and one west. It became a community college. During that time the Swain high school that Jim and I attended was moved off school house hill to “the road to no where” (can not remember the actual name) . A lot of the buildings on school house hill were removed and the elementary school for the center of the county remains there.
My mom was born in 1921. I have a few pictures from her school days like this with several children wearing clothes with the same pattern. Mom said a few were worn by children in the same family, not because they were sewn from the same bolt by the family’s mother, but because most of the clothing from the same fabric came from the charity boxes the county provided. The clothes were all the same pattern because the county could get bolts of the same pattern at discount prices. Apparently ladies clubs in the big city volunteered to sew the clothes. She and her siblings and other kids in the same situation hated having to wear those items as it labeled you forevermore as poor and down and out, and the other better off kids teased about the clothes coming from the “county boxes”. She remembered walking several miles many times to the county office with a few of her sisters to get a box of items when their family’s turn came to receive a box.
There are to this day places made remote by a lack of bridges. I could name a couple of examples. One is a triangular area in TN between Kingsport and Cumberland Gap. In the county I grew up in there are only two bridges in about 30 air miles linking two adjacent counties. No doubt there are many, many more examples around the country.
What an interesting post. Arnold did a wonderful job describing the picture history as much as he could with little information. I will say he may want to take another look at that picture because as one reader pointed out there is indeed 6 children dressed in the same type of plaid fabric. It’s always interesting when one can enlarge a picture so you can see details of people’s faces, style of clothing, hairstyles, shoes, hats or buildings around them. Seeing those small detail really brings it to life. Great post, thank you for sharing it.
Nowadays neighbor can stretch to the other side of the state or around the world. Ya’ll are good neighbors. We need more good neighbors.
Tipper–Arnold (his last name isn’t given) sure offers material of interest to me, since I’m a native of Swain County. I think he might find additional information on some of the ground he covers in Lillian F. Thomasson’s book on the educational history of Swain County. While the work has some problems with research and factual information, it is strongest on the school system and the county’s schools. There is almost certainly a copy in the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City. Incidentally, if Arnold grew up in the Hightower area he would have gone to Swain High School and almost certainly would have had Lillian Thomasson as a teacher. She taught in the school system for upwards of 40 years and commonly taught two generations of family members and in some cases possibly three. She taught my father, who graduated (11 grades, as Arnold mentions) from Swain High in the late 1920s, me (who graduated in 1960), and my younger brother, Don (who graduated in 1969).
Arnold is not an uncommon surname in the US. Consider Benedict Arnold, Tom Arnold and Eddy Arnold. I claim no kin to the first and wish I did to the last.
I was called by my surname for many years at work. Not many people even knew my given names. I still run into former coworkers who remember me well as my last name but I have to tell them my first.
Upon closer inspection, I think there are 6 dressed in plaid. The sixth one is so tiny she is almost covered up by the young boy seated in front of her. I can almost hear the photographer scolding them to be still, thus the somber faces.
Thank you Pam for noticing the sixth little girl in plaid. It was more than common for women of that time and place to make their children’s clothing.
Sad that a school and a community can disappear. One has to look past that and look at the people the school and community produced. I daresay that the majority of students in this picture served our country in WWII and, possibly, in future conflicts. The majority of these students went on to have successful jobs and careers. Some became professionals, ministers, nurses, doctors, engineers, teachers, that contributed to the community they settled in. They were able to do these things because of the family and times that they came from.
A timely post that reminds us of the proven importance of family, roots, education and a community of people that have good, solid roots.
In my area of southern Greenville County, SC there are many country school buildings that have been closed. Some of the buildings were used for other purposes. My mother was born in 1926 and walked and attended a small community school (Flat Rock) that was within 1 mile of her home before being bused to a larger high school (Fork Shoals). The school itself is still in existence but the original school buildings have been tore down and new buildings built and has been an elementary school for at least 65 years. Her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren all attended this school. I am not smart enough to know the correct word to use, but when you listen to the older people the went to these smaller country schools, there did seem to be a sense of pride or of being a community and respect for the one or two teachers at this old community schools.
Two schools close to me, Gray Court-Owings elementary and Ware Shoals high school are still in existence and are still in the original school buildings built around 1925. These are the oldest school buildings still in use in South Carolina.
What a treasure…the picture and the information. Don’t you know those were tough times and probably a better family togetherness. Sometime I think hard times really shows what people are made of and how they learn at an early age ethics and morals. This was a little before my time, but I can tell you I learned not to be a mamby pamby. I am so concerned for today’s children and how and what they are learning. This could be a long conversation, so I will refrain. Take care of Granny and give her my best. By the way, I loved watching Matt’s attention to the deer on the side of the hill…it sho nuff perked up his getting ready for hunting. The smile and glean in his eye brought a smile to us watching. God Bless