Not Your Grandfather's Mountain

Hugh Morton inherited Grandfather Mountain in 1952 and started developing it into a tourist attraction. Shortly thereafter, he built the mile high swinging bridge, which tends to sway in the high winds that can hit the mountain.

Located between the towns of Linville and Boone, NC, the mountain was originally named "Tanawha" by Indians, meaning “a fabulous hawk or eagle.” Early settlers gave the mountain the name “Grandfather” after seeing the image of an old man in one of the cliffs.

Today, the mountain rises to an elevation of almost 6000 feet as it looks out over the Catawba River Valley.

As I entered the gate to Grandfather Mountain, the attendant warned me "You may not be able to see much. There's a lot of fog up there."

He was right. You could barely see across the swinging bridge there was so much fog. I had to wait for the it to roll through before I could tell that the bridge didn't actually vanish into thin air.

On my way to Grandfather Mountain, I stopped by Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC, to photograph their newly remodeled Industrial, Engineering and Customized Industry Training Division. John Hauser is the Dean of the school and is posing in one of the new high-tech labs.

Lyndell Duvall works on one of the new CNC Milling Machines at the school.