Photo of The Month – Oct 2005

Grand View

Picture contributor: Hazel Haynes Bridges

A view from the clock tower in the late 1920s showing Cliffside spreading toward the northeast. This picture, undoubtedly made by Will Hames, long-time town photographer, reminds us that Cliffside was not filled with cookie-cutter, same-style houses, as were some mill villages, but had a wide variety of architecture.

All the streets were unpaved, but in late 1926 North Main Street (then called highway 207) had been “tarred and sanded,” an early, low-cost substitute for asphalt.

The massive building in the center is the new Baptist Church, constructed in 1924. The first house built in Cliffside was moved to make way for this new church. The clearing in the distance just above its roof is the cemetery. Every available space around the homes is filled with flowers, gardens and other evidence of contented lives. A mere 30 years before, none of this existed.