Wilson Creek and the ghost town of Mortimer


Still having some time off to fill, I traveled up to Wilson Creek and the ghost town of Mortimer in Caldwell County, NC. This area is quite beautiful, but quite remote. The road is not paved, and can be quite narrow at times, making passing a vehicle coming from the other direction at the wrong time a delicate ballet. The altitude is about 1500 feet, with the high mountains just off to the west. Some of the mountains I saw on the way up were capped with snow from the day before, but I didn't see any snow on the mountains surrounding Wilson Creek.

Most people I saw there were fishing, some fishing waist deep in the creek. A few bicyclists were on the road getting their exercise, making the area was mostly mine to explore. My first stop was Wilson Creek Visitor Center.



View Larger Map


Wilson Creek Vistor Center
The Wilson Creek Visitor Center has a nice collection of photographs and artifacts showing and telling the history of the area.

Photos and and a still

Next to the visitor center is a country store, but I didn't go in.



I noticed parking areas of varying sizes spaced out along the roadside allowing easy access to the creek. I took advantage of that to take some photos of the creek and also observe the evidence of past flooding the area is known for.


My next stop was Mortimer, NC, a ghost town. Mortimer was a thriving mill town of about 800 people until a devastating 1940 flood drove people out of the area. The Wilson Creek Visitor Center has photographs of Moritmer, including the mills shown below.

Cotton mill ruins
Mill ruins
My next stop was the Mortimer Campground, built by the CCC back in the 1930s. On the way, I noticed the ruins of a train trestle so I made an extra stop.
Ruins of railroad bridge


The campground is closed to visitors for the winter, but you can still walk through it if you choose. I was more interested in taking a photo of the white building that survived the 1940 flood.


Having taken all the photos I planned to take, it was time to turn around and head home. Heading back down the road, I noticed a monument I hadn't spotted the first time through.


I also spotted more railroad bridge ruins.

And I also had to take one more photo of Wilson Creek before the sun got too much lower in the sky.


The Wilson Creek area is quite beautiful. I look forward to coming back again someday. It's a pity it took so long (about 2hrs one way) to get there and back so I could have spent more time there.

More information

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First and last visit to Lyman Mill

Image
After reading a goupstate.com story on the destruction of the old Lyman Mill in Lyman, SC that closed in 2005, I quickly decided I wanted photos of the mill before they get too far along tearing down the mill. View Larger Map I thought being a Sunday the crews wouldn't be working, but I was quickly proved wrong. A few people were in their machines busy with their work. The area is surrounded by a construction fence, but a large part of the parking lot is still available to park and walk around. Part of the work is already done, and the company performing the destruction expects to done by the end of May. Most of the mill is still intact at this time. If you want to visit though, you better visit soon. I also found an abandoned railroad right of way I just had to explore. I traced it back to where it headed into someone's property, and not far beyond it presumably would have merged with the mainline. Then I traced the line toward the mill.
Read more

First visit to Andersonville Island

Image
One of my major motivations for buying a kayak was to visit interesting places only reachable by water. Andersonville Island in Lake Hartwell is definitely one of those interesting places for me. Since my friend and fellow explorer Tom Taylor has been here before , and since he was clearly interested in heading back, I asked Tom to come along. After checking his availability, he agreed and offered to bring along a friend of his I hadn't met yet, Bennie Waddell. I took some vacation time off this week giving me plenty of days to choose from. I selected Wednesday, the 7th, for this trip to avoid the early week rain, and the later part of the week when the weather turns sharply colder. My other vacation days are being used to work on various projects inside the house. Before I get to the adventure, first a short-ish history of the area. Andersonville Island is named after the ghost town of Andersonville, once located on the northern and eastern side of the confluence of the T
Read more

December 2019 Hikes

Image
I've been on a number of waterfall hikes since Thanksgiving, mostly with Meetup groups. Since I don't take many photos when hiking with the Meetup groups, these hikes weren't really worth a post on their own. I did post a few photos to my Instagram account, but if you don't happen to Instagram then these hikes will be news to you. I'll summarize the visits below. Wildcat Wayside On December 11th, I led a small group to Wildcat Wayside , a roadside wayside park located by US 276/SC 11 near Cleveland, South Carolina. First we hiked a trail to visit Lower, Middle, and Upper Wildcat Falls on Wildcat Creek. Then we went down to a trail by Slickum Creek to visit Last Falls on Slickum and Sweet Thing on Slickum. As a bonus, I then led them past a parking area where US 276/SC 11 split to a bushwack up to Spider Tunnel Falls , the top of which is visible from US 276 during the winter. My photos from this trip are in the album Wildcat Wayside and More - Dec 20
Read more