Thanks to local volunteers, the Native American section of the Nelson Heritage Park has moved closer to completion. The Nelson Heritage Park is a cultural heritage tourism destination located in downtown Hayesville. The Native American section of the park will display a Cherokee winter house and summer house. In late November and early December 2008, volunteers cut and collected donated locust poles that will be used for the construction of the Cherokee structures. Locust is a hard, durable wood that was widely used in construction by the Cherokees prior to European settlement in the region. Volunteers included Tighe White and Ian White, Bill Clement, Glen Love, and Rob Tiger. Ella Scheuer also helped. Bruce Cheek and Charlie and Barbara Kissling donated the locust poles, the trunks of locust trees grown on their land.
In addition to the Cherokee houses, the Native American part of the Nelson Heritage Park will also include a series of murals mounted on an existing retaining wall. The murals will serve as the backdrop to the park and present an artist’s depiction of Cherokee patterns and artifacts. This project involves close collaboration with the Eastern Band of the Cherokees.
The Nelson Heritage Park is a joint project of the
Clay County Historical and Arts Council (
http://www.clayhistoryarts.org) and the
Clay County Communities Revitalization Association (
http://www.cccra.net/).
The donors of the locust poles -- Bruce Cheek (828-389-6813) and Charlie and Barbara Kissling (828-389-8931) operate cattle farms. The Kisslings run Walnut Hollow Ranch, where they raise commercial Black Angus cattle and Simmental crosses. They also run livestock sales of Paso Fino and other gated horses.
Tighe White, who coordinates construction on the Nelson Heritage Park site, is a developer of Hayesville’s Riverwalk of Hayesville community. In November 2008, the community was the scene of Hayesville’s first annual “Punkin’ Chuckin” contest in which the objective was to hurl a pumpkin the farthest using a home-made medieval siege machine. Mr. White and his son build custom homes, commercial buildings, and churches. See
http://www.tighewhite.com/ or contact at
tighe@tighewhite.com or 828-389-8102 (office phone) or 828-361-1232 (cell phone).
Bill Clement, one of the volunteers, is the owner of Shrimps Seafood Market (828-361-4479) on highway 69 near the Hayesville rotary. Glen Love, another volunteer and a retired aerospace engineer, provided a chain saw.
Ella Scheuer (570-362-3277) was the project architect for the Nelson Heritage Park and the Clay County Historical and Arts Council. Ms. Scheuer served as a Design Corp fellow in Hayesville for one year, after which she continued to work on various design and funding components of the project until the end of 2008. Rob Tiger, owner of Tiger’s / Chinquapins on the Square in Hayesville, is the president of CCCRA (
http://www.cccra.net/).
In addition to the Native American section, the Nelson Heritage Park will also include various historic pioneer buildings donated by a local family. These buildings will be divided into two destinations within the park; a farm homestead which will display buildings such as a corncrib, outhouse and a smokehouse, and a village which will display public buildings such as a post office, schoolhouse and general store.
The Cherokee winter house and summer house will be built on the area where the farm implement shed now stands. Plans call for relocating the shed and its tools plus the old smoke house. The latter is currently being used for storage by the Historical and Arts Council. The project has applied for grant money to finance the move and the new construction. If the application is approved, construction will begin in early 2009.
At the base of the park will be a small visitor’s center to orient the guests and provide educational support for children. Maps and information about the park and all other Clay County tourist attractions and parks will be available as well. There will be public restroom facilities, indoor exhibition space, office and archive space, classroom/meeting space and additional storage space for any overflow from the museum.
Ian White, Tighe White, Ella Scheuer, and Glen Love
stand in front of the locust poles.
Rob Tiger and Tighe White unload locust poles.
