Gena of the Appalachians

On the very top of the Blue Ridge, over against Mt. Mitchell itself, the highest peak of the Appalachian system, nestles the little village of Blowing Rock. The distinction of being a great summer resort and at the same time boasting the highest altitude of any town in the Appalachian system belongs to Blowing Rock. A town of some five hundred inhabitants, with six or seven summer hotels and long strings of summer cottages, its population is easily doubled twice over during the hot summer season, by the rich of the north and east, and the well-to-do from the south. The northerner and southerner meet here for a month's rest, not forgetting (albeit they come for rest) to find time enough in which to exchange a few shares of cotton-mill stock of the South for a few shares of shoe-factory stock of the East.

The artist, too, is found in Blowing Rock. He comes and finds both rest and profit. He walks out upon the great rock -- the Blowing Rock itself -- which projects horizontally out into space at the very apex of the Blue Ridge, and looks out into the very countenance of the great Appalachian system of mountains. He sees just in front of him Mt. Mitchell itself, in all of its midsummer glory. To the right he beholds Grandfather Mountain, the old man reclining in silent sleep beneath sapphire skies -- his aged head pillowed upon the everlasting piles of stone, and his couch draped in summer's mantle of emerald green. Then thousands of feet down he beholds the plains of the valleys below stretching away, beyond the vision of his eyes, on into the endless cotton-fields of the South.