Deep River Heritage Project Needs Help
Ramseur - A grassroots coalition
is racing against time to save an
important piece of our state’s his
tory along the Deep River. The
Deep River Heritage Coalition is
developing plans to create a her
itage corridor along the Deep
River that would interpret the rich
human and natural history along
the river from its source near the
Piedmont Triad International
Airport in Guilford County
through Randolph, Moore,
Chatham and Lee counties.
While the Deep River features
many important natural heritage
sites that include Native American
and early European settlements,
recent events have caused the
Coalition to focus on the early tex
tile industry that was developed by
the Quakers.
An important textile mill, the
Columbia Mill in Ramseur, is
being tom down for the salvage
value of its materials.
“The Columbia is far more impor
tant than sum of its salvaged
parts,” says Franklinville Mayor
Mac Whatley, the primary advo
cate for the heritage corridor. “The
Columbia was the third or fourth
oldest textile mill (c. 1848) still
standing in the state and was large
ly untouched in that the mill had
not been modernized over the
years as so many other mills had
been. That makes the preservation
of the Franklinville Mill (c. 1838)
all the more important.”
Simon Particiates in Symposium
Statesville attorney Pam Simon
received notification recently of
her 10th anniversary inclusion in
Best Lawyers in America. The
publication is based on an exhaus
tive peer-review survey in which
16,000 leading attorneys cast more
than a half-million votes on the
legal abilities of other lawyers in
their specialties. Because lawyers
are not required to pay a fee to be
listed, inclusion is considered a
singular honor.
Simon, a board-certified family- '
law specialist, has over the past
decade increasingly devoted her
« career to Alternate Dispute
Resolution (ADR) in lieu of court
room battles, (n the mid-90’s she
worked on the committee to for
mulate rules for Superior Court
and Family Financial-Case media
tion. In 1999, she was a co-drafter
of the N.C. Family Law Arbitration
Act, making North Carolina the
first state in the country to adopt
an arbitration act designed espe
cially for family-law cases.
She is the lawyer primarily
responsible for introducing North
Carolina to the concept of
“Collaborative Law,” a procedure
in which the clients sign a contract
at the outset agreeing to keep their
case out of court, and negotiate as
a team with their lawyers and
other experts, identifying prob
lems and fashioning solutions,
attempting to maintain a cordial
relationship with each other and to
develop an excellent cO-parenting
relationship for their children.
She presented the first draft of a
Collaborative Law statute to the
legislature in early 2003, and the
statute was adopted effective
October 2003. North Carolina is
only the second state in the Union
to adopt a Collaborative Law
statute. On Nov. 6, Simon will par
ticipate in a day-long symposium
on Collaborative Law at the annu
al Academy of Matrimonial
Lawyers’ meeting in Chicago, 111.
Simon received her J.D. with high
honors in 1984 from the UNC
Chapel Hill School of Law, where
she served on the Law Review and
was tapped for the “Order of the
Coif,” the official law-student
honor society. She is a member of
Pope, McMillan, Kutteh, Simon &
Privette, P.A., a Statesville firm.
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According to Whatley, the
Franklinville Mill is the second
oldest textile mill in the state and is
the oldest water-powered textile
mill in the state.
“The mill was a social statement
by the Quakers against the agrari
an economy that was based on
slave labor more than an effort at
economic development,” Whatley
added.
An emergency effort is now under
way to raise funds to secure as
much of the salvaged materials as
possible for use in the restoration
of the Franklinville Mill, which
would benefit from the more origi
nal materials that are being sal
vaged.
The Yadkin-Pee Dee Lakes
Project, a regional sustainable
development nonprofit that is
working to create “North
Carolina’s Central Park™,” is tak
ing the lead in raising funds for
this purpose. North Carolina Zoo
Director David Jones serves as
chairman of the Project and has
been the guiding force in develop
ment of the “Central Park” con
cept.
Bill Medlin, Executive Director of
the Yadkin-Pee Dee Lakes Project,
says the Deep River Heritage
Corridor is an important economic
development strategy for the
Piedmont region because of its
capacity to produce significant
well-paying jobs that cannot be
exported because they are based on
the history of a particular place
and people.
“Imagine . traveling from
Greensboro via automobile on a
scenic drive along the Deep River
through small rural mill towns,
each with their own character and
story, stopping at a restaurant over
looking the river or staying at a
Bed and Breakfast or Inn in one of
the restored mills,” suggests
Medlin. “That is part of our vision
for the Deep River Heritage
Corridor.”
Combine that with walking paths,
a planned canoe and kayak blue
way along the river and interpreta
tion of its history, Medlin says, and
one can ponder questions relative
to the nation and society as a
whole. “You begin to fathom the
importance of this project and this
resource,” he said.
Medlin said the economic poten
tial for the Central Park was con
firmed by studies commissioned
by his organization. These studies
estimated the potential for the
seven-county area to add 33,000
jobs and more than $3 billion in
annual revenue by the year 2025 if
the Central Park Strategy is imple
mented.
Whatley encourages anyone inter
ested in furthering this project to
contact the Yadkin-Pee Dee Lakes
Project at info@lakesproject.org
or 704-422-3215. Whatley may be .
contacted directly at 336-824-2604
or 336-318-1484. Tax-deductible
donations to the emergency sal
vage fund can be made in care of
the Yadkin-Pee Dee Lakes Project,
P.O. Box 338, Badin, North
Carolina 28009.
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