JULY 16, 2009 ISSUE
McGuinn Publishes Book on Historical Northwestern NC Businesses
Doug McGuinn’s latest local history book, The Railroad to Nowhere: The Deep Gap Tie & Lumber Company Railroad and other Northwestern North Carolina Business Ventures, has recently been published.
The Railroad to Nowhere contains the stories of five northwestern North Carolina business ventures: the Copper Knob Mine (also known as the Gap Creek Mine); Cowles’ Stand (the A. D. Cowles & Company Store); the Deep Gap Tie & Lumber Company Railroad (the “Railroad to Nowhere”); the V. L. Moretz & Son Lumber Company (formerly the Deep Gap Tie & Lumber Company); and Appalachian Ski Mountain (formerly the Blowing Rock Ski Lodge).
These businesses were all located in Watauga or Ashe counties (both counties in the case of the Deep Gap Tie & Lumber Company Railroad).
Like all business ventures, some were successful, and some were not so successful. Even though these business were diverse in their activities—a copper mine, a general store, a railroad, a lumber company and a ski resort—they all can trace their roots back to one man, Calvin J. Cowles.
McGuinn is also the author of three other local history books: The “Virginia Creeper”: Remembering the Virginia–Carolina Railway, The Last Train from Elkland and Green Gold: The Story of the Hassinger Lumber Company of Konnarock, Virginia. Like McGuinn’s other books, The Railroad to Nowhere contains plenty of vintage and modern pictures (a few never published before).
The Railroad to Nowhere is on sale for $9.95 and can be purchased in Boone at Black Bear Books, in Todd at the Todd General Store or online at www.stores.lulu.com/DougMcGuinn.
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