Archives: Landmarks

It was a small, three-room school just across Broad River from Cliffside. In 1938 it was closed and the students were merged into Cliffside School. Don Bailey has ferreted out the details and discovered what happened to the building. Are you in this photo of the school’s students in its last year?

Not a filling station, as such, although you could buy gas and oil. Not a supermarket, although you could shop for essentials. It was the convenience store of its day, run by a man named Voyd Jenkins. The building still stands, although it has been remodeled and repurposed.

Article from a 1955 Trains magazine about the history and operation of the CRR. And don’t miss the 100+ picture gallery devoted solely to the railroad.

There aren’t all that many, but James Harris correctly deemed them worthy of being photographed. It makes us nostalgic for those old signs of yesteryear: Mills Drug Store, Hawkins Hardware, Miller Furniture, Biggerstaff’s Barber Shop.

It has been in town for 90 years, but seen by only a handful of people. It’s an important element of a major landmark. Where is it?

Don Bailey found this blurb about our railroad in a 1914 issue of the Manufacturers Record, a trade newspaper. Obviously the massive trestle was eventually torn down and replaced by a culvert, but when? Does anyone recall ever seeing it?

In 1939 the Duke Power Company began construction of a new power plant just south of town. It provided a life-changing service to hundreds of thousands of Piedmont Carolina residents. It was (and is) the employer of dozens of our friends and neighbors. Through the years the plants capacity and importance to our area has increased. Here’s a gallery of photos taken over the years, plus a 1940s magazine profile of the plant, and a roster of the operators who manned their stations on the very first day of operation.

We resurrect the remains of an old railroad trestle north of town, and answer some old questions with these present day photos.

Thanks to his months of research and the drafting skills of Jim Cauble, we present a map of the village at Duke Power’s Cliffside Steam Station, as it was in the 1950s. It shows the houses and the occupants. There is also a listing of all the residents of the village.

Although the Baptist church had its centennial this year, the building is actually 104 years old. In its first four years it was a Methodist church. Don Bailey has written a history of the church and its people and an account of the celebration and homecoming held one Sunday this past August. The articles are accompanied by a collection of new and old photos.

The most enduring landmark in Cliffside is the cemetery. Did you know some of the long-ago owners of the land on which the cemetery sits may be buried there? Read its history, look over maps of its layout and peruse lists of those buried there. All these pages are a significant addition to our Landmarks section.