PRESS RELEASE FROM SWANNANOA VALLEY MUSEUM:
The Swannanoa Valley Museum hosts a stand-alone tour led by always-entertaining (and mostly-truth-telling) guide, Bill Alexander. The tour will explore the area that was once part of the mill town that surrounded Beacon Manufacturing in downtown Swannanoa.
More Details: Swannanoa remained primarily a rural, farming community until the late 1870s. When the railroad was finally completed in 1879, after being stalled by the Civil War and by the difficulty of laying track up the steep grade from Old Fort to Black Mountain, it connected the western part of North Carolina with the eastern part, and new businesses began to spring up near the railroad station. Then, at the beginning of the 20th century, Charles D. Owen II, the son of a blanket manufacturer from Massachusetts, saw a 160-acre farm beside Swannanoa’s railroad tracks that was well suited for a new southern branch of the Beacon Blankets Manufacturing Company. Between 1924 and 1933, the entire New Bedford, Massachusetts, plant was moved via freight train to Swannanoa. Once the plant began operations, the Owen family provided housing in mill villages, paved roadways, water lines, sanitation services, and fire and police protection to their employees. Beacon also more fully developed the downtown Swannanoa business district, and during the early years of the mill a grocery and general merchandise store, a drugstore, clothing stores, a movie theatre, and a bank opened.
Date: Saturday, June 4, 2016
Start Time: 10:00 AM
Meet: parking lot directly across from the First Baptist Church of Swannanoa, 503 Park Street, Swannanoa, NC 28778
Difficulty Rating: Easy, walking tour on paved, level groundPrice: $20 for members, $30 for nonmembers
Registration: Call 828-669-9566, email info@swannanoavalleymuseum.org, or register and pay via our website: http://swannanoavalleymuseum.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c9bb7186fad03a1f53aadc8d4&id=69e8450710&e=a089d7e08f
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