The Long View: 1902

The area around Sapphire and Toxaway is beautiful. My daddy's family were from that area and they would have been somewhere in the area when this picture was taken.

I see they had telephone service here. But what about WiFi?

Some South Carolina cousins of mine have a row of mountain houses no too far from Mount Toxaway. The first house has been in the family since the 1880s. When my dad was little, his elderly cousins recalled how in pre-automobile days the family would travel up there in the summer to escape the heat. They basically moved the whole household via horse, wagon and carriage. Drove a cow or two up with them, took the chickens, etc. It took them as much as a week to get up there, and they would visit friends & relations along the way as they went.

That poor lady in the chair looks like she just had to climb up all those hills to reach that porch.

This, I would have to say, is one of the most magnificent front yards I have seen.

It's the opening, or the ending, of how many Westerns?

What a striking, surreal photo -- the people look utterly without personality or energy. The woman in the rocker seems unable to even have the strength to flex her arms at the elbow. In 1902, people may have read this photo as a scene of people engaged in spiritual contemplation in the face of staggering natural beauty, but to my eyes, the people seem very isolated and bereft. I wouldn't be keen on spending a weekend at the cottage with that group.