Skip to main content

Old NC 10 - The Central Highway: Old Fort to Black Mountain through the Royal Gorge

A unique way of tracing the remnants of the Central Highway is through the mountainous terrain of Eastern Buncombe and Western McDowell Counties.  From the east on US 70, you reach the base of Blue Ridge Mountains at the town of Old Fort.  Old Fort is a tiny rail town that the old Central Highway and now US 70 goes through.  The Central Highway can be followed via a right onto Mill Creek Road from US 70.  Follow the highway as it takes you closer to the mountains.  When Mill Creek Road bears right to head towards Andrews Geyser stay straight until the road ends at a gate.  The nearby Piney Grove Church can be used for parking.  At this point, the old Central Highway began a 3.5 mile climb of the mountain to Swannanoa Gap.  NC 10 and later US 70 travelers followed this road for over 30 years until a new and modern four lane US 70 was built to the south.  This same four lane road would eventually become Interstate 40. 
 
The Central Highway through this area began as an old stage route that climbed the mountain near the tracks of the Western North Carolina Railroad.  The rail line's ascent up the mountain featured the 1800' Swannanoa Tunnel.  The old Central Highway crosses over the tunnel near the crest of the mountain.  Once at Swannanoa Gap, the Central Highway descended down the mountain towards Ridgecrest and eventually Black Mountain.
 
Although the old Central Highway has been barricaded off for several years, it has become quite popular by local residents and travelers alike who hike and bike along the winding cement pavement. Amazingly the old road is very passable, save for downed trees and overgrowth.  Remarkably, in some cases old pavement markings are still visible.  The three and a half miles of abandoned highway ends near Swannanoa Gap with another barricade as the road returns - although sparingly for auto use. (Note: This western gate is marked as Private Property.  It appears that the former highway is on private land for about a 1/2 mile from the Swannanoa Rail Tunnel to the west gate.)
 
Along the way is Point Lookout which served as a popular site seeing stop as it overlooked the highly scenic Royal Gorge.  Many views of the gorge and Point Lookout were captured on linen postcards commonplace in the 1920s through the 1940s.  At Point Lookout, travelers often stopped at the scenic overlook.  Here, one could fill up on gas, take a stretch, gather scenic views of Royal Gorge, or purchase local craftsmanship and homegrown harvest.  It appears that the Point Lookout store, which was built between the Central Highway and the edge of Royal Gorge, was most popular in the 1930s.
 
I have been fortunate to hike this old highway in October of 2001 and 2007.  It is a very easy hike but do bring water and snacks as the grade and length of the hike can get tiring over time.  Residents near the old highway are very friendly and always willing to say hello and tell you about the old road.  Be sure to bring your camera as the views from Point Lookout and along the old highway are very scenic. 

The text above was written on my old All Things NC! Website about the Central Highway.  I hiked the highway with Dave Filpus in 2007 - about a year later - NCDOT converted the 3.6 miles of old road to the Point Lookout Trail.  A greenway that is suitable for hiking and biking.  A 10' multi-use path was paved along the route.  If you haven't had a chance to explore this old stretch of road, you should!

All photos taken by post author October 2007 (photo of the author taken by Dave Filpus).  All postcards scans are from postcards owned by author.
























 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po