Newspapers / The Franklin Press and … / March 18, 1948, edition 1 / Page 11
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FELICITATIONS TO t THE JACKSON COUNTY BANK of HIGHLANDS from The Highlands Theatre ? BEST WISHES FOR SUCCESS to The Jackson County Bank of HIGHLANDS from POTTS BROTHERS Highlands, N. C. Recalls Story of Whiteside '? / Cliff Rescue 37 Years Ago Nobody Has Ever Gone After Liquor Left By Gua Bety By BILL Bon There's a pint of licker, 37 years old, available to anyon* who wants it free. All you have to do Is go down where Gus Baty left it and pick it up. Gus ain't going back for it. He was there in 1811, hanging head down and looking through thin mountain air at Eternity 1,800 feet below him for an hour or more, the only man who ever fell off the highest sheer precipice In Eastern Amer ica. Gus's portentous plunge made him an ardent admirer of the rhododendron, and cured him of drinking. Also it cured a couple of generations of young bucks of competing to show their girl friends how close they could walk to the edge of Whiteside's precipice. Gus entered that contest, and won. In 1911, with some boy and Ctrl frtendt, Agu?tu? Baty, then 27, hir?<l a hack and want to Whlteaide, a formidable outcrop of granitic rock, for a frolic, a trip popular to this day. The gentlemen consumed some white licker, according to Ous. and started on some factory whisk ky. The party later progressed to the highest summit, prophet ically called Fool's Rock. Ous went to the rim of Fool's Rock to scare the girls and in explicably disappeared He first fell a sheer 25 feet and landed in a clump of rhododendron, "which", Ous says, "sure was a lucky break for me, because il I had landed on the bare rock, chances are I'd been knocked unconscious right then and there. I tried to grab the branches, but they came off in my hand, I rolled on down. The granite sloped off then for 150 feet at an angle of about 45 degrees, and beyond that was a sheer drop of 1,800 feet to the valley below. When Ous focused his eyes, he was looking down on death, some 1,800 feet below. In his fall (and roll) he had broken his right thumb, his left foot, right knee-cap and left shoulder blade. He stayed for an hour or more. Above him, the men were hol lering, the women crying (one of them promptly fainted), and there were shouts of "go get Charlie Wright!" When Charlie Wright, a stout lad and the hero of this por tentous fall, arrived on the scene, It was said by a report er at the time that he glanced down at his buddy and "whisp ered words of encouragement." But Ous was struggling trying to get his shoulders back on the ledge, and In so doing was in imminent peril of taking the bush with him over the cliff. Charlie's words of encourage ment, says Ous, ran like this: "Ous, damn your time, you lay still or else IH kill you." Charlie, with W. M. Dlllard, went over to another part of the cliff and started along a narrow ledge toward the be leaguered Baty. The ledge end ed 30 feet above and 30 feet to the left of Baty, and there was only the bare 45-degree rock be tween. Dlllard yelled, "I can't go any further," but Charlie started across the precipice, taking advantage of the small water holes left in the rock. Inching slowly up to Ous, he grabbed hold of the rhododen dron bush by one hand, and Ous's clothes by th? othti, and vary (lowly raised him up "Funny thing," says Ous, ?'with me all busted up and the skin all tort off my body, a pint of llcker In my pocket was still unbroken. Charlie took that out and laid It in the clump of rhododendron. Then he and I started up the rock together. He put his shoulder under my arm and caught me around the waist We finally worked up 30 feet. Then we had to go 30 feet to the left where Dillard was standing on that tiny ledge." Charlie shouted to those above to run back a mile to the hack and bring the check line oft the horses. With this they haul ed Ous up, and Dillard and Wright followed the ledge back around the mountain as they had come in. Charlie, now dead, got a Car negie gold medal and a $2,000 house, and Dillard got a silver McGilU Mentioned In Drew Pearton'a 'The Merry-Go-Round' Mr and Mrs. J. M McOlll, owners and operators of the Franklin Lodge, come in (or mention In the widely published syndicated column of Drew Pearson, The Merry-Go-Round. Mr. and Mrs. McOlll, in wint er, operate the Cassadaga Hotel, at Cassadaga, Fla., and the col umnist, in last Wednesday's Merry-Go-Round, tells of a fish ing experience in Florida. Ac cording to the story, Mr. and Mrs. McGill invited him on a fishing trip? and it proved to be the first time in his life that he was successful as a fisher man. one and a $2,000 farm. "The pint? Its still there, son, and you're mighty welcome to it," said Gus. TO 0 N N G County Bank A A g The Jackson County Bank T T Of I . ?' HIGHLANDS T T I I ? 0 0 N N I Holt Furniture Co. CONGRATULATIONS To Our Neighbors in HIGHLANDS ' and to the Jackson County Bank on the opening of a Highlands Branch i * * * Citizens Bank & T rust Co. Andrew* ? Hayeiville ? Miurphy ? Robbiniville Total Capital Over $300,000 Member Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Congratulations to the Community of Highlands and . . ?? ?A'. ? : . The Jackson County Bank Of Highlands ON THE OPENING OF THEIR BRANCH In Highlands THE BANK OF ASHEVILLE Asheville, N. C. MEMBER FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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March 18, 1948, edition 1
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