Home Page of RememberCliffside.com
Dedication
The Remember Cliffside website is the legacy of Alfred Reno Bailey who spent 17 years (2002 – 2019), working thousands of hours collecting and publishing the photographs and oral histories about Cliffside, North Carolina. With the passing of Reno in 2019, this website will no longer be updated, but will continue to be a valued resource on the incredible history of this southern mill town. For future announcements and updates, please visit the Remember Cliffside Facebook page.
Suggested Features
400
There are 400 photos in the Faces of Cliffside galleries, recently restored from the original version of Remember Cliffside.
Progressive Rutherford County
A recently-discovered 1948 film titled “This is Progressive Rutherford County,” extolling its most attractive attributes: its scenery, lifestyles, etc.
It’s back and expanded. All the stories from the old website, and now including the 1922 section from Don Bailey’s Cliffside, N.C.: The First Half Century.
Ponies on Parade
Remember when in the summertime the pony man would come around and take pictures of us, all dressed up in (his) cowboy garb, sitting astride his docile pony? This should refresh your memory.
Gathering Gallery
On Friday night, October 7, the society held its Gathering for 2016. This year’s event was a tribute to Photographer Roy Lee Harris. Talking about their father’s life and work was James Harris and Sherri Harris Phelps. Here are photos of some attendees.
Andy Love
So many have lived and worked in Cliffside, then died or moved away, and are in time forgotten. One on-going effort of this site is to rekindle the memories of as many as we can.
Here’s a profile of one who left Cliffside during the early 1940s, but who some still remember : Robert Andrew (Andy) Love, Jr.
Writings of Charles Robinson
He grew up on the family farm out on Highway 120, graduating from Cliffside High in 1945. He attended UNC in Chapel Hill for a couple of years. Charles spent most of his working years in Greensboro, selling insurance for the Pilot Life company. In all that time, he wrote stories, poems and memories for his own satisfaction. We’ve published some of them here.
A Circle of Lives
A Texas girl named Martha Franklin taught for two years in the late 1940s at Harris High School. Read how her son and Phillip White, from old photos, tracked down old friends who never forgot her.
H-C-A School Kids – 1940
A short film made in 1940 made at Tri-High and at the elementary schools in Henrietta, Caroleen and Avondale, showing the students and faculties.
Cliffside Railroad
The stories and photos of the locomotives and people who ran the famous little railroad.
Football on a Smaller Scale
Don Bailey remembers the gridiron teams of the 1950s at Cliffside High and beyond.
Jessie Carpenter’s Obituaries
A great part of history is the people who lived it, and the basics of a person can be found in his or her obituary. Over about 40 years Jessie Carpenter clipped and saved the death notices of Cliffside folk (116 in all) and her granddaughter, Linda Webster Poteat (since deceased), shared them with us. You can select specific names of the deceased from an index or browse through the 31 pages of Cliffside’s past. You can start with Jessie’s own story.
House Lists
Where did your people live? In, say, 1935, or 1944-46 or in 1964? Look it up, in our tables for those years.
Do you know this man?
Probably not, unless you’re one of his descendants who keeps up with your family tree. He died in 1928, but not before he wrote a valuable book on his life and times along Broad River and the surrounding area.
In The Story of My Reminiscences, Richard (Dick) Meredy Jolly (b. 1842) tells of his ancestors and descendants; his experiences as a Confederate soldier in the Civil War; and his careers as a farmer, ferryman, tax-collector, deputy sheriff, Klansman and politician.
Cliffside Day 2016
As Hurricane Matthew went roaring past the Outer Banks, the once and present denizens of Cliffside ignored the overcast skies and celebrated the annual get-together. Marilyn Moore Kerr caught the action for this big gallery of photos.
Bricks and Memories
In her last article for the website before she passed away, JoAnn Huskey writes of an old house that stayed close and forever in her memories.
More than 2,000 Cliffside citizens were counted in the 1910 Federal Census. You can find individuals listed by name or browse the lists by street, and read about the town and its people as they were over a century ago.
An Evening with Ben Humphries
The “evening” was captured on video at the Gathering of 2011. If you missed it, enjoy this hour of story telling and colorful memories of Ben’s life in Cliffside.
More Obituaries
We’ve amassed a collection of 265 death notices from the years 1903 to 2017, from various newspapers and other sources. You can search for an individual or browse through nine pages of images and select the obits you want to read.
My Time in the Town
Benjamin Bailey recalls the Cliffside of his youth in the Fifties and Sixties: The old oak tree; those hedges around yards; sounds of the mill; his accidental tour inside the town clock; and much more.
Felonies, Misdemeanors, etc.
It was not entirely a town of happiness. Sometimes the peace was interrupted by sorrowful events, both purposeful and accidental. Here are a few that happened in Cliffside over the decades.
Don Bailey’s New Book
It’s a brief history of Cliffside High School. Included are lists of all faculty and all graduates, with brief profiles of selected administrators, faculty and alumni. Click image to order from Amazon.
Sum of Its Parts
Ever seen a locomotive in pieces? Strewn all over the ground? Well, down in Bonsal, NC, our old engine 110 is being restored to its former self, and the North Carolina Train Museum staff took it apart to remove all the rust and ruin, and one day it’ll be good as new. Here’s a few shots of their work.