THE QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF
THE HISTORIC TOXAWAY FOUNDATION
SUMMER 2020
IN THIS ISSUE
- WNC Magazine Profiles Lake Toxaway’s Wooden Boat Parade
- Southern Highlands Reserve Deserves A Visit
- What A Time: Movie Production in Historic Toxaway
WNC MAGAZINE PROFILES LAKE TOXAWAY’S WOODEN BOAT PARADE
The summer issue of WNC Magazine is hot off the press and the cover feature story is a gorgeous photo essay about the Lake Toxaway Wooden Boat Parade, an event held last summer in conjunction with the Historic Toxaway Foundation’s donor appreciation party. Enjoy!
You can also watch the wooden boats in action on the lake in this video clip from HTF Board member John Nichols.
SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS RESERVE DESERVES A VISIT
When people call something “a gem,” you sometimes wonder if the name is truly earned or just hype.
Well, make no mistake: Southern Highlands Reserve owns that moniker, and plenty of others, too. In numerous features and reviews, this local native plant arboretum and research center has been referred to as magical, amazing, spectacular, and stunning—not to mention, simply, heaven. Need we go on?
Read more about Southern Highlands Reserve in the July 2020 issue of Our State magazine, here.
Certainly founders Robert and Betty Balentine recognized the land’s beauty and charm when they bought a lot for their home on the heights overlooking Lake Toxaway—enough so, in fact, that they also invested in an additional 120 acres of the surrounding wilderness as part of a conservation easement with the North American Land Trust (NATL).
What the Balentines learned later was that their “gem” of a property had much of its true value hidden from immediate view, because the property is home to an array of native plants and species rarely found elsewhere.
WHAT A TIME: MOVIE PRODUCTION IN HISTORIC TOXAWAY
At least two studio productions from the ’40’s and ’50’s were filmed in part on locations in Historic Toxaway. First was 1948’s TapRoots, followed nearly a decade later by 1957’s Thunder Road (we’ll talk about the latter in a future issue of The Quill). Meanwhile:
Tap Roots was a Technicolor Western war film. Set during the American Civil War, it is very loosely based on the true-life story of Newton Knight, a farm owner who attempted to secede Jones County from Mississippi.
The film starred Van Heflin and Susan Hayward, with Boris Karloff (horror movie master, not to mention the voice of The Grinch!); Julie London (remember her as the nurse on TV’s Emergency?); Whitfield Connor (of Guiding Light soap opera fame); Ward Bond (perhaps best remembered as Bert, the cop, from the film It’s A Wonderful Life); and Richard Long (who played Jarrod Barkley, the eldest son of Barbara Stanwyck’s iconic character on The Big Valley).
The Echo, a monthly publication by and for employees of the Ecusta paper mill in Brevard at the time, soundly panned both stars in its June 1947 issue (see clip at right)—though they did give a nod to Heflin’s wife (unnamed in the article, but presumably RKO contract player Frances Neal, pictured with Heflin).
The New York Times didn’t offer much in the way of praise either. A review of the film in August 26, 1948, states: “Checking the accuracy of historical detail in “Tap Roots”…would serve no purpose. All that matters is that in this mass of Technicolor film, Van Heflin makes violent love to Susan Hayward (and vice versa) and men die gaudily and resentfully for a cause doomed from the start. It might be remarked in passing that the picture also dies a slow, lingering death…It is unfortunate when a project of such dimensions as “Tap Roots” turns out so disappointingly, for it is obvious that much effort and expense went into its making.” Ouch.
But you know, the critics aren’t always right. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can watch the entire film on YouTube here. Hint: It’s worth at least a look at the opening credits, which display over an image of Toxaway Falls!
Thanks for sharing a few minutes of your day with us!
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