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The History of Chimney Rock Park & The Town of Lake Lure Resort September 2012All photos and illustrations by Pat Johns ©2012 - present
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But this is not what Dr. Lucius Morse saw when, according to the family story, he paid 25¢ to ride a donkey to the top in 1902. Sent to Hendersonville for its climate, believed to be favorable for dealing with his tuberculosis, he took day trips in the area and found the Hickory Nut Gorge. What he saw from the top was potential. He convinced his twin brothers, Hiram and Asahel, successful businessmen back in Missouri, to fund the $5000 purchase of land including the Chimney Rock. By the early 1920s, they had acquired over 8,000 acres including the land under today's Lake Lure with the additional acreage financed with a $1,000,000 mortgage secured by the property. |
Dr. Morse had seen the creation of a lake as a crucial step in attracting resort tourists, so in the early 1920s, they borrowed an additional $550,000 and created the Carolina Mountain Power Company. The Morse brothers deeded the land needed for the lake and the dam in exchange for 100% ownership of the power company. The dam was built by 1926 and the lake was filled by 1927, the same year that the Town of Lake Lure incorporated. Which quickly brought them to October 1929 when the stock market drop and the failure of banks caused an economic collapse which led to the forclosure of both mortgages. Just as in 2008 and all economic upheavals in between, heavily leveraged projects were quick to tumble. The upshot is that the Morse brothers were left with the original Chimney Rock property and the banks created Lureland Realty Company to sell the foreclosed acreage around Lake Lure, no easy task during the Great Depression. The realty company sold the last of that property in 1942. |
So Chimney Rock and Lake Lure became separate properties and headed in different directions. The Morse family continued to develop Chimney Rock as a park, adding better access roads and trails and, their biggest project, blasting a hole in the rock cliff to install an elevator, opened to the public in 1949. After the elevator they added gift shops and a snack bar. In the 1980s the Morse family took contol of the day-to-day operations of the park for the first time since Dr. Lucius Morse ran it. Hiram Morse's grandson, Hiram Morse III and his son Todd Morse continued to develop the trails and improve the stairs and bridges They began to focus on conservation and documenting the animal and plant life of the property adding a Nature Center in 1987. Meanwhile, the real estate market began to take off in the 1990s and 2000s and the Lake Lure area developed with the creation of gated communities and golf courses near the lake and building of large, expensive homes. According to The New York Times in 2006 (see citation below) Hiram Morse III and his son, Todd, decided to sell the property due to "mounting financial concerns, potential estate-tax complications and the planned creation of the Hickory Nut Gorge State Park." Morse also indicated to the Times that there was considerable "development pressure." |
The State of North Carolina had been purchasing land around the park to create a new Hickory Nut Gorge State Park and had indicated that they would like to add the Chimney Rock property to the park. After an appraisal and with the help of The Nature Conservancy, the state offered $20 million dollars for the nearly 1,000 acres. The Morses rejected the offer and offered the property for sale at $55 million through Sotheby's, a prestigious real estate broker specializing in marketing high-dollar properties. While Todd Morse said that he and his father hoped that the new owners would " carry on the legacy of stewardship we have started here," many suggested a price of $55 million would force a buyer to develop the property commercially to repay debt and earn a profit. |
The motives of the Morses are not publicy known, but public pressure came down on all parties and eventually the Morses agreed to sell it to the state for $24 million, while the employess retained a management contract to operate the park, collecting entrance fees and paying a royalty to the state (chimneyrockpark.com news releases). Records show that the Morse brothers' purchase of Chimney Rock in 1902 was a business undertaking expected to make a profit. In Hiram Morse's (one of the brothers who put up the money) autobiography, written in the 1940s, he reports, "It is beautiful, but since 1902 when Asahel and myself were persuaded [by their brother Hiram] to buy and improve the property, it has yielded no profit that has not been plowed back into the property. It has therefore not been dividend yielding and consequently disappointing, though years to come may possibly tell a different story. If not yet profitable from the viewpoint of professional auditors, the property has come to be cherished through pride of its ownership." |
Today a visit to Chimney Rock Park is much like it was years ago with knowledgeable park employees answering questions and helping along the trails. Meanwhile, the Town of Lake Lure is wading through the downturn in the real estate market like most resort communities. But the heart of it all, the Hickory Nut Gorge, where Cherokees hunted and traveled, where a branch of the Underground Railroad moved slaves to the North and where some have even speculated Ponce de Leon may have come through, remains the reason to go. The State of North Carolina has changed the name of the park from the Hickory Nut Gorge State Park to Chimney Rock State Park, but the park is about the gorge. Chimney Rock provides the view, but the view itself is of the narrowing gorge to the left and the widening gorge and the Morse brother vision of development to the right. |
Our mountains are dotted with the effects of people who found an opportunity staring back at them when they encountered a breathtaking view or remarkeable geographic feature. They "discovered" them, bought them, developed them and then succeeding generations inherited them. The MacRae family of Wilmington bought and developed Grandfather Mountain and the Linville golf club and resort. George Vanderbilt bought 125,000 acres with his share of the proceeds of the Vanderbilt fortune and along with his cousins used the family fortune to build lavish homes, with George topping them all with what is still now the largest private home in America. All of these properties were acquired within the same decade, near the end of the Gilded Age. And now, just over 100 years later, two are now state parks and the Vanderbilt home is a highly commercialized business. In each case, succeeding generations were left with the choice to keep or sell, preserve or cash out. Although it may sound thrilling to inherit a breathtaking gorge, an entire mountain or a 250-room home on 8,000 acres, those inheritances come with public pressures, significant responsibility and difficult choices all of which become important chapters in the overall history of the properties. |
The Chimney Rock 2012 hours vary throughout the year. To find updated information click here. Both the little village of Chimney Rock and the town of Lake Lure offer places to eat and stay. Check the local websites listed below for more information. Links to more information and references used for this articlle: |