A Lodge Called Folkestone
The Dream, The Challenge, The People
by Bob Kranich
(Excerpt 24)
“The Lodge Called Folkestone”. You may wonder why the first half of the book is about my many adventures throughout the USA. Well, this first part explains just why my interests changed from hot rodding cars to backpacking. How the idea of a lodge came about, and just how the lodge came to be in North Carolina and next to the Smoky Mountain National Park, Deep Campground to be exact.
Following are our experiences and adventures over the next five months, in some sort of order as they happened.
The first thing Irene set out to do was a kind of a light makeover of the house. She had me buy shutters to go on the inside of the breakfast nook. I took up some old linoleum, and painted the floor in the nook. I also made a large still life acrylic painting of hiking and camping items to go up in the living room. This was such a quaint old house. It had the one piece porcelain sink with drainboard in the kitchen. There was also a period antique pie safe in the kitchen.
The first people we were to meet were Doc and Granny Gibby. They lived in the middle house of the three, our next door neighbors. We never did meet the people in the farthest house. Since it was early spring, Doc was out in his garden. It seems like it is kind of a contest, to see just who can get their gardens up and growing first without them freezing. Doc was a tall and thin man. He looked frail but there he was, running a rototiller. I found out later that those things can make a man out of you, or they will just wear you out!
I went over and introduced myself. He took us in and introduced us to Granny. Later in the summer, when the gardens began to bring forth their harvest, Irene helped Granny can vegetables and make jams. This was how she learned to make the great jams she served later at Folkestone Lodge.
We found out from the Gibbys that they were forced to move out of their mountain farms twice by the federal government. They were born and raised way west of Bryson City, up Hazel Creek, in a small mountain town called Proctor. When the TVA dammed up the Little Tennessee River with the Fontana Dam, the waters were going to cover the town, so they were bought out and forced to move. Next, they bought a small farm just outside of Bryson City. And guess what? The big interstate Highway 74 came right through their farm, and they were again bought out and forced to move. So, here they are on Deep Creek, and Granny said that she wouldn’t be surprised if a big highway comes right along the creek and through their home again!
One thing I noticed that really made an impression on me is that around lunchtime, and again in the evening, Doc would be out on their front porch in his rocker, reading the Bible.
Right behind us was a barn-looking garage of about four-car size, two wide and two deep, and a small trailer by the east Deep Creek Road. I saw a guy moving about over there, and I went over to investigate and introduce myself. The fellow was an older man of average height and build, Gordon Shuler. The Shuler name was definitely local and mountain. He had a brother living on the west Deep Creek Road near the RC Cola plant, and a son living in Asheville.
Gordon was retired, but had worked all his life for the Bryson City water works. Gordon was working in his garage barn. He was making a step-up for his pickup truck, so his missus could get up and in. I watched him and helped a bit. I actually think that Gordon invented the first after market add-on modern pickup truck step. He made this when you couldn’t buy them in any auto store. How about that for a mountain guy? An invention of necessity. I had to go get Irene, and she met Gordon, and then we both met Gordon’s missus.
The house on the other side of us had a married couple with three elementary school age children, two girls and a boy. It also included four hound dogs. Bob and Linda Jenkins' mother lived on a lot in a trailer right behind them on the east Deep Creek Road, on the corner. Jenkins was also a local mountain name.
A couple of things that I remember about the Jenkins. When my birthday came in July, somehow Linda found out, and brought over a rhubarb pie for my present. She apologized for not having any money to buy a store bought gift, but had made me this pie. I said she didn’t have to worry. This great pie was all mine! Another was, Bob drove an old Jeep station wagon. The last memory was, one time someone asked Bob what was his favorite pastime, and he answered, “Hunting with old Smoky there,” as he pointed to one of his hound dogs.
Across from the Jenkins’ house, was a small house right on the creek. Wentford Cagle and his wife lived there. Wentford worked at the small RC plant I mentioned before. The Cagle name is also a mountain name. Wentford was a real Smoky mountain man. He invited Irene and me to go on a day hike with him. On a Saturday, we three, and another man, went up into the Deep Creek National Park Campground, and parked our cars. We hiked up Deep Creek to Indian Creek. We continued up Indian Creek to the Sunkota Ridge Trail. We took this trail up and over the Sunkota Ridge, and down to a location called Jenkins Place on Deep Creek. We hiked back to the Deep Creek Campground and our cars. This was about a five mile hike. Coming out on Deep Creek, and as we crossed a wooden vehicle bridge, we came to a place where water was flowing out of a pipe stuck into a rock cliff. Wentford said, “Let’s get a drink here.” He exclaimed, “Now, that’s good water, boys! Just taste it. Can’t get that in the big city.”
A little farther down the trail we met a young couple. After talking a bit, we found out that they were going to camp on up the trail at the Jenkins Place. We said good by and continued on. That’s when Wentford said, “Wouldn’t you like to see their eyes when that old screech owl makes its sound tonight in their camp? Why, I bet their hair stands straight up!”
One day, I got this idea. I needed to plant a garden, something like Doc Gibby had. I didn’t think that I should dig up Al’s yard, but I had seen a place that maybe I could get permission to use. There was a field with no house on it, at the intersection where we had made our turn onto East Deep Creek Circle from Deep Creek Road. I asked Gordon Shuler if he knew who owned it, because we could see it from his property, and I could point it out. He said that was called Lackey Hill. He was pretty sure that it belonged to Johnnie Shuler, no relative of his, but the Johnnie Shuler of Shuler’s Furniture Store. It was downtown at this end of Everett Street.
I drove down there, and walked in. Later, I realized that Shuler’s Furniture Store was a kind of legend in its own time. Johnnie's father and mother owned and ran a small mountain hill farm on the lower end of West Deep Creek Road across from the RC plant. It was one of those hills where the cows had to have two legs shorter on one side to stand up straight as they grazed on the hill. Johnnie also had a younger brother who had a backhoe and worked for himself. Consequently, everyone knew these Schulers.
As I walked in, I saw three people standing around a desk. One of them must have just told a joke, for the man sitting at the desk was laughing. “Ha...ha...ha. Oh come on over, young man. May I help you?” the man at the desk asked.
“Yes sir, I’m looking for Johnnie Shuler.”
“You're looking at him. I’m Johnnie,” as he extended his hand.
From The Author:
This is a new book. It is about the Lodge I built in the Smoky Mountains, near Bryson City, and Deep Creek campground, North Carolina. Having been from Florida, I know that a lot of Floridians love to visit the Smoky Mountains National Park. Therefore hopefully you will enjoy my story of the building of “A Lodge Called Folkestone”.
