Etowah NC Heritage
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  • SPECIAL
    • Etowah Heritage Day 1889 - 2019
    • Etowah Treasures Exhibit, Sept/Oct 2019
    • Virtual Tour of Selected Historic Places
    • History Displays in Etowah & Library Notebooks
  • TIMELINE/MAPS
    • Timeline 1700 to present
    • Maps
    • Maps - 1838 Formation of Henderson County
  • PHOTOS
    • Memorabilia
    • Places, Early Homes, Other
    • French Broad River & Valley Views
    • People - early times
    • People - post 1950
    • People - Gash Family descendants
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  • HIST. I
    • Etowah History Notes - Research To Date
    • 1889 Money, then Etowah
    • How Etowah Got Its Name
    • Postmasters 1889 - 1968
    • Etowah Train Depot - 1895 >
      • Trains of Etowah
    • The Railroad - Hendersonville to Toxaway
  • HIST. II
    • 1900 U.S. Census
    • Farms of Early Etowah
    • Historic Schools 1800s - 1928 >
      • Historic Etowah High School 1928 - 1960
      • Little Chief - Gleanings from
      • Etowah High School - Memorial Plaque 2014 - HCEHI
      • Etowah Institute 1911
      • Schools of Nearby Communities
    • Historic Churches
    • Historic Cemeteries
    • Adopt-A-Cemetery: Thomas-Fletcher
  • HIST. III
    • Sheriff Robert Thomas
    • Civil War Union Monument
    • Orr Cabin Homeplace - early 1800s
    • Mountain Lily - 1881
    • Welsh Colony 1880s
    • Grist Mills
    • Shape Note Traditions
  • HIST. IV
    • Businesses - Early to mid-1900's
    • "Etowah Brick" Moland-Drysdale Corp. - 1923
    • Camp Peep-Out - 1935
    • Etowah Grange #984 - 1937 >
      • Grange - 25th Anniversary 1937-1962
      • Grange Quilt - 1953
  • 1950 +
    • 1952 - Hatheway Floral Company
    • 1954 - Etowah Lions Club
    • 1960s - Growing & Changing
    • 1964 - Etowah / Horse Shoe Volunteer Fire
    • 1966 - Water System Tower
    • 1966 - Etowah Riding Club
    • 1982 - A Library Comes to Etowah
  • Stories
    • Eade Anderson, Reverend
    • Lois Adcock Bayne
    • Emma Louise Curtis Bradley
    • Richard Brown
    • Patricia Bell Cantrell
    • Jerri Whiteside Lambeth
    • Wanda Sumner Love
    • David S. Mallett
    • Opal Dalton Parkinson
    • Jeannie Huggins Revis
    • Glenda Maxwell Simpson
    • Marylin Annette Jones Thomas
    • "The Follies" & "Matilda's Folly"
  • About
PHOTO GALLERY:  FRENCH BROAD RIVER & VALLEY VIEWS

Etowah lies at approximately mile 37 from the headwaters of the
French Broad River near Rosman.

Map:  a section of the "French Broad River Map & Guide"
​
source:  Riverlink.org
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1930s - Standing on the frozen French Broad River at the Blantyre Gauge.
L to R, Winborn Gash and Claude Davis of Blantyre.

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Excerpts, Wilma Dykeman's book, "The French Broad" 1955

"South out of the green heights of Pisgah National Forest the North Fork of the French Broad tumbles past Piney Mountain and Spice Cove and Panther Mountain to join the West Fork of the river.  For a unique feature of the French Broad is that it begins with four  large tributaries flowing from the four cardinal points of the compass and all called by the river's final name.  From the little township of Rosman where the four join to create the main stem of the French Broad, it follows a sinuous northerly course through narrow but fertile bottom lands and receives two more rivers, the Davidson and the Little, before it enters Henderson County, twice the population of its neighbor Transylvania, where the bottom lands become wider and Mills River quietly joins its course and Mud and Cane Creeks enter from the east.  Just south of Asheville the plain Hominy and the poetic Swannanoa become part of the French Broad."  (pg 8)

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Wilma Dykeman 1920 - 2006

"To the Cherokee who roamed this country of the French Broad and had the legendary villages of Kanuga on the Big Pigeon and Kanasta on the French Broad, who hunted these forests and fished these waters, a river was part of their religion and livelihood, their commerce, their myth, and their recreation.    . . .
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Long Man, the River, fed by the tributaries of his Chattering Children, all the brooks and rivulets winding through the mountains.  To the French Broad specifically they gave the name Agiqua, and for at least part of its length, the rapids below Asheville, they called it Tahkeyostee, meaning "Where they race."  The Cherokees were right.  This river needed several names to fit its several moods and natures." (pg 15)

Go to page:  "Mountain Lily" steamboat 
on the French Broad River

1881 - Launched in nearby Horse Shoe
​1885 - Ran aground at Kings Bridge, abandoned

Etowah Valley Views
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Preparing the land for spring planting
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Trestle over French Broad River, site of 1895 collapse when the 'Teapot' train was making its way down the tracks.
About the 1895 train accident