we're looking down on Lake Lure. This is a surprise! Lake Lure is where actress Jennifer Grey practiced with Patrick Swayze to do the dance lifts in the 1987 movie, "Dirty Dancing." They even included some of that footage in the movie. That, too, was a movie set up north, but it was filmed here in North Carolina, just like "The Last of the Mohicans." (Seems there's a terrific film industry going on in North Carolina!) "Dirty Dancing" was released 25 years ago; "Mohicans" was released 20 years ago. I like both of those movies - a lot.
Dr. Lucius Morse came to this area as a young doctor from St. Louis around the turn of the 20th Century. (That's like 1900 for all of you centurion illiterates.) He decided Chimney Rock was spectacular and would make him some money if he turned it into a park. In 1902 he bought the first 64 acres, and over the next 100 or so years the family put together a 1,000 acre preserve. Through their stewardship, this area has literally been preserved, so you see things in the very same way that Dr. Morse first saw it.
In 2007, the family sold the 1,000 acres of their Chimney Rock park to the state of North Carolina who has since added 5,000 or more acres. (As a Texan, I'm not so sure what I think about the government owning any more land in America. That's what folks came to the New World for - land. Seems all the land in Europe was owned by the kings, queens, or rich people. Us little peons could never get ahead because those folks didn't want us to, and all they had to do was not let us get our hands on any land. To all of you young people across the world, it's never too soon to begin putting together a heritage of land ownership. Just start with a few acres, add a few more every few years. It's important.)
But today we're here to climb to the top of Chimney Rock and see what there is to see.
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