Remember Cliffside

What's New - 2004

Other What's New files: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, Current

Date

Addition or change

12/31/04 From 74 years ago, there's a story of murder on the River Bridge. You'll find it in the Tragic Events section of In The News.

The Photo of the Month is particularly timely, for it's that season again of inclement weather.

And don't miss the 52 new photos in the newly-devised Scenes Around Town Gallery No. 4. (Our "photometer" just passed the 1800 mark. That's how many photos there are in all the galleries and major projects on this site.)

Remember the name H. Lee Waters? He's the man who made those films of Cliffside back in 1937 and '40. He has recently received national acclaim for his film work. It's announced on the front page, or you can go directly to the article.

12/19/04 Added five new pictures to the Cliffside Day 2004, starting here.

Added five more Forest City Courier columns by Cliffside's own Francis "Skipper" Thompson, all in the month of March, 1934.

There's a surprise awaiting in Memories, on the page displaying the story of our old town clock. Go there, scroll down and see if you can find it.

In Flashbacks, there are memories of a long-ago Christmas from Glenn "RGee" Watkins.

For our In The News department, Don Bailey has contributed another article previewing the new Romina Theater in advance of it's grand opening in January, 1929. This in-depth article was printed in The Forest City Courier.

Also In the News, we've added yet another Community Column from the summer of '26, when the big news was new Terry looms in the mill and a new filter plant abuilding.

The wonderful year 1962 was when Cliffside Railroad officials recognized the steam era had come and gone. So they put their magnificent old steam engines out to pasture, and switched to little nondescript diesels that didn't get much notice or respect. Read 'Old Puffer Made Final Trip.'

Speaking of railroads, do you remember the big train wreck of 1911? Of course you don't, but there was a really big one between Ellenboro and Bostic, and we'll bet that practically everyone in Cliffside drove up to see the aftermath.

11/30/04 We've embarked on a whole new project in the Memories section called "The Thompson Columns." We're adding, a few at a time, the entertaining weekly columns written in the 1930s by Cliffside's own Francis "Skipper" Thompson, for the Forest City Courier. We'll start with his columns of Nov. and Dec. of 1933, and Jan. and Feb. of 1934.

We hope you enjoy the 60 photos in a new Faces gallery, "Faces of Cliffside V." Also, there are 30 new pictures in the Present Day collection taken on Remember Cliffside Day 2004, on October 9th.

In "In the News" we've added articles on the commencement exercises at CHS in the years 1926, 1928 and 1929. We have also redesigned the section (to make it easier to add articles).

In the Mabel Cargill pages of Memories, we've added "Her Year," a lovely poem she wrote in 1963 in memory of her dear friend, Ina Fortune Haynes. And, in the Family Stories project under History, there's a story and pictures of the family of Drury Dobbins Fortune, Ina's father.

RGee Watkins favors us with another reminiscence, this time about the first official rescue crew (in the early '50s).

Probably the most discussed mystery around Cliffside is that of Zon Robinson, who vanished in 1943 and was never seen again. We ran across this article from 1955, perhaps the last of many written about his disappearance.

Added the first sound segment to the Web site: Go to the "Ol' 40 Rides Again" page. And what was all that about dressin' up that old train engine just to take pictures? Here's the whole story of The Train Shooters, with a small gallery of pictures.

Added a few more examples of our colorful way o' talkin' to Can you speak Cliffside? (Look for the little blue star.)

Added six more names to the Contributors' List.

In Odds & Ends, there's a quaint goodbye note from a teacher to her students in 1922.

And, finally (pant, pant) we've got a wonderful Photo of the Month for December. It's one of those pictures that's worth a thousand words.

Corrected all links on this page. (As the Web site grew and we reorganized the files, many of the older links got "outta whack."

10/31/04 A new Reader Comment. John Craft writes from Pennsylvania that, thanks to our Web site, his group of railroad enthusiasts resurrected the Cliffside Railroad for a day.

In Family Stories, there's the amazing saga of Eva Haynes, sister of R. R. Haynes, and her tragic marriage to Holloway Wall.

Betty Haynes Lyles has contributed a sidebar to Becky Callahan Scruggs' "Hello, Central."

In Community Groups we've added member names to the 1917 Haynes Band picture; and added two brand new band pictures here and here.

We're breaking the story of the new owners and their plans for a new 'old' Cliffside

A scholarship fund has been established for Dr. D. H. Huss. Try to contribute.

Cliffside says goodbye to the old phone system (1955).

And our Photo of the Month for November is a big surprise. A picture of something you wouldn't have dreamed walking in the streets of Cliffside.

09/30/04 Becky Callahan Scruggs has written a delightful memoir of living and working as a young girl in the “office” of the Cliffside Telephone Company. See “Hello, Central...” in the Memories section.

We received a new Reader Comment from Jane McBrayer of Forest City with more information about last September's Photo of the Month (“Big Parade”). And we've Updated the Photo of the Month for July 2003 (Fair Exhibit).

From Myles Haynes, Jr. comes this story of his father's old Chevrolet rigged for running on the train tracks. Remember that?

In Memories, in the Mabel Cargill project, we're reprinting a 1948 press release announcing the opening of her new flower shop, Cliffside's first.

We've added several more names to the Contributors List. We're now up to 182 generous supporters.

In Odds and Ends, look again at those "Block C" and eagle patches we used to sew on our Cliffside High sweaters and jackets.

Here's more information about Remember Cliffside Day coming up on October 9.

And there's October's Picture of the Month. Simple times, simple pleasures.

08/31/04 We're proud to add to our Memories department a 24-page memoir written by Jennie Hawkins Metcalfe. It's called “Turn My Face Toward Cliffside.” Jennie, born in 1907, was the daughter of Plato Commodore Hawkins. She tells many tales of her family, friends and the early years of Cliffside. (Contributed by Nancy Brown Wallace.)

In the Documents section, there's a Descendents List of Charles Haynes, great grandfather of R. R. Haynes. (If anyone can fill in any missing information, let us know. We'd like to bring it up to the present.) (PDF file; Adobe Acrobat required.)

The Photo of the Month for September is another from the Blanche Edwards Campbell collection, contributed by Carolyn Greene Waters. It's a view from downriver of Cliffside's "skyline."

Additions to Photo Galleries include a group picture of the CHS class of 1945 (here), and five pictures (here) of the class's reunions over the years. (Thanks to Charles Hardin.)

Read the startling story in Did You Know? of how free enterprise was stomped, stifled and squelched on the very threshold of success. A true life adventure.

In Memories, Newspaper Columns and Stories, you'll find a nice article about the town clock from 1944. (From Ben Honeycutt.)

There's another Reader Comment, this one from Judy Dedmond Mason.

In Odds and Ends, there's news about a second hawk or eagle that was "acquired" in 1925 for the Memorial Building lobby. Don Bailey, who collects artifacts related to Cliffside, ran across the story in the Rutherford County Sun archives. He also found this 1944 postcard from a wife to her husband in the Marines. And from Frank Nanney, a program of the Cliffside High graduation exercises in June, 1924.

08/02/04 As we tear another page off the calendar, it's time to unveil the Photo of the Month for August. It's a pedestrian's-eye-view of the original bridge that connected the town to Riverview Street.

We've embellished our story about Bost Bread on the Remember That? page. Thanks to Barbara Miller of Deland, Florida, for contributing the image of a Bost Bakery patch that deliverymen sewed onto their uniforms. (She bought the patches for her collection with no knowledge of where the bakery was located, then did a Web search and got the answer right here on Remember Cliffside.)

07/19/04 Added two news stories from 1992 about Judson and Jeri Crow's then newly-published book, "First Families of Cliffside" (which was the basis for our feature called "A Look at Cliffside in 1910"). One story is "School Research Project Becomes Book"; the other is "The Way They Were..." (Articles contributed by Mack Hendrick.)

We've started a new photo gallery titled “Class Reunions.” It includes 20 new photos plus three that were previously displayed in the School Groups galleries. We replaced those with some new school group photos here, here, and here. Careful, several Reunions pages display more than one photo; scroll down to see them.

Read two delightful new stories about Cliffside in the '40s by Jim Haynes. You'll find them on his page in Flashbacks in the Memories department.

Mack Atkinson has favored us with a very complimentary Reader Comment.

Fan fans will like this one in Odds and Ends: a religious painting on the front, with some scripture on the back, compliments of C. P. Hamrick Stores.

07/05/04 1938 was the graduation year for Joe and John Compton, Polly Carpenter, John Womack, Sarah McGinnis, Duke Hill, Eula Mae Gamble, Coble Tate and 21 others, all of whom you'll meet again in The Senior Cliff Dwellers, the 1938 CHS yearbook.

Thanks to the tireless Don Bailey, we now have some information (where and when) about the Cliffside Baby Week. (There's a new button at the bottom of the Baby Week navigation column, titled "news item." )

07/01/04 July's Photo of the Month is a landmark you may have heard about, but possibly never seen, for it was on a seldom-traveled path. Our thanks to Madeline Scruggs Hardin for the picture.

And we've got a very interesting Did you know? item provided by that correspondent with the terrific memory, Sam Davis.

06/13/04 Our World War II section (under History, Homefront) continues to grow with the addition of “Laverne's Scrapbook.” As a teenager in the war years, Laverne Ingram collected clippings about Cliffside's service men. Here are those clippings and a few poems from the period.

On a trip to Isothermal Community College's library, we saw, hanging on the wall in a place of prominence, this awe-inspiring portrait of our beloved Raleigh Biggerstaff.

Uh-oh, your webmaster has been musing again, this time about the possible consequences had Cliffside been a real, honest-to-goodness town, and not privately owned. See What if...? in the History section. What are your thoughts on the subject?

There's a new Reader Comment, this time from Cliffside resident Mike Hanson. He has some memories about the boiler room in the old mill.

In the Did you know? section on the front page, we tease you about an event that happened in 1928: Two Cliffside boys hitchhiked all the way to Salinas, Kansas. You can read the whole story in “In The News,” our collection of old news items from the Rutherford County Sun.

We're pleased to have added a dozen new names to the Contributors page. If you haven't seen your name there before, you may just find it there now.

05/31/04 A new Photo of the Month from about 1912. Can you help us identify any of the Cliffside Mill workers in the picture?

Last month's Photo of the Month featured two old men sitting on a Cliffside sidewalk. One of them has been identified. Go to the Updates page.

In the World War II section (in the History department) we've added another gallery of 13 photos.

05/19/04 Most individuals in the Cliffside High class of 1926 photo have been identified by Carolyn Greene Waters and Myrtle Mashburn. (Hover the cursor over each individual.)

We've been going though a truckload of old records, letters and documents from the earliest days of Cliffside that were salvaged by Phillip White and Wayne Smith when the downtown buildings were demolished in the 1970s. Starting today, and in the coming months, you'll be seeing some of the history we've been able to glean from this treasure trove. Wherever any of this information is presented, credit will be given to “Phillip White/Wayne Smith Cliffside Archives.”

The first installment is a very interesting listing from 1944-1946, showing, month to month, who lived in which house on which street. (And we've changed the button bar on the left side of each page: the button formerly labeled “'35 House List” is now labeled “House Lists” and will take you to a House List index page.)

On the front page, there's a new Did you know?, and a note about an event that's Coming Soon.

05/02/04 May's Photo of the Month is another whose faces we can't identify. It's of two old men sitting on the sidewalk in Cliffside in 1915 or so.

In History, there are pictures of a memorable Cliffside artifact, not seen by the public since the Memorial Building closed decades ago, that has resurfaced.

On the front page, in Did you Know?, there's a clue to something that's new and welcome to Cliffside.

There's an update to a photo we posted only last month in the Early Years 2 gallery.

03/31/04 In Landmarks there's a follow up to the Romina Theater story. As you may recall, Walter Haynes built and opened the theater in Forest City in 1929. We examined the remains of the old movie house. Here is some updated history and recent photos of what's left.

For our Memories section, as a sidebar to the Romina story, Phillip White has written a short memoir of his experiences in and around the old theater.

Finally, we've got April's Photo of the Month.

03/22/04 A very complimentary Reader Comment has arrived.

There's a new Did You Know? item (on the front page).

Most significantly there are 23 fascinating and very old photographs in a new gallery, Early Years 2.

03/09/04 In the History Department we've installed seven photos taken during Cliffside's Baby Week Exhibit held in April 1916. If you recognize anyone in the photos, let us know.

We were sent a fascinating excerpt from an autobiography of Charles Freeman, who lived in Cliffside in 1904-1905. It's in Family Stories. This the oldest personal reminiscence of the town we've run across.

Another "small world" coincidence. See Readers Comments where a Cliffside resident of about 1908 has been "found" by his British descendents.

02/29/04 Created Church Groups gallery with 21 photos. On one of them, a picture of 118 children and adults who joined the church at a 1942 Baptist revival, we provide close ups and names of every person.

Added photo of the 1949 Mens Basketball Team to Groups/Sports.

More new photos:

Sixteen in the Informal Groups gallery, starting here.
Three in the Faces in the Mill gallery, starting here.
Seven in the Hames Studio collection, starting here.
Seven in Ponies on Parade, starting here.

There's a new book in the Suggested Reading list called “Plant Life,” a novel about working women in a North Carolina cotton mill.

And our Picture of the Month, titled “On Duty,” that documents one of the most important—and under-appreciated—jobs in old Cliffside.

As of this date, according to our count, there are now 1,430 photos on this web site (not counting the three high school yearbooks).

02/11/04 Several of us old-timers (some older than others) recently wheezed through the old mill, which, as you may know, shut down its operations last December. It was our first chance in many a year to return to the old work spaces we use to inhabit. We've written about what we saw, what we remembered, and a little history of the mill in a new article in the History Department, called “One Last Time.”

During the tour we shot a lot of pictures, 46 of which we're sharing with you in the new “Old Mill” gallery found in our restyled Present Day Photos section.

We've run across a different article about the '64 jet crash with reactions from 12-year old Jamie Padgett and high school junior Buster Brown Willis.

There's an amusing new Update to our recent “Snowy Alley” Photo of the Month article, a new Did You Know? item and one more Reader Comment.

Finally, we're reducing the size of our front page by placing some of the older Special Feature alerts on an "archive" page. You can reach it by clicking the link at the bottom of the front page.

02/01/04 A new Family Stories article. This time the subjects are Luther & Blanche Campbell. You'll love the photos from the 1910s.

February's Photo of the Month is a picture taken by Jim Ruppe almost exactly 47 years ago. It features some seldom photographed—and less celebrated—buildings in downtown Cliffside.

In Odds & Ends, there's an artifact you may remember, a cross stitch of the Town Clock, and the pattern to create it. You can also access the pattern (in PDF format) on the Documents page.

Finally, there's an Update to a recent Remember That?

01/14/04 While you're huddling around the stove, here are lots of interesting things to read and look at:

A profile of the late Sam Haynes

A speech by Walter Dalton delivered at a 1988 Cliffside Reunion

A new Scenes Around Town gallery with 39 terrific photos

Another Did You Know?

A new Remember That?

Ten new phrases in Can you Speak Cliffside? and a new way to find them

And a nice new addition to Reader Comments

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