Mountainside Theatre: A Personal Experience

Mountainside Theatre
688 Drama Drive
Cherokee, North Carolina

If you’ve read this blog for awhile or have checked the very brief bio to the right of this entry you’ll know that I’m an actor. If you didn’t know, my secret is out. By nature, theatre people tend to be very superstitious and it’s noted that any theatre worth its salt should have a ghost. The Mountainside Theatre is no exception.

Three of the best summers of my life were spent working in Cherokee at the Mountainside where the outdoor historical drama, Unto These Hills, has been performed every summer since 1950. The Appalachians hold a particular charm and having lived there, even just a few months, I truly feel that part of my heart is there. Of course the atmosphere of living among fellow theatre people—who possess tremendous energy, intelligence and creativity—enhances that experience. And the parties and Bohemian life was awesome as well!

Cherokee lies at the heart of the Qualla Boundry Cherokee Indian Reservation, the seat of the Eastern Band of Cherokee. The Mountainside Theatre was built to house Kermit Hunter’s play, Unto These Hills, which tells the story of these particular Cherokee people. The drama utilizes both hired actors and members of the Cherokee community in telling the story and for many of the locals the drama has become a family tradition with grandparents performing alongside their grandchildren and sometimes great-grandchildren.

My first year in Cherokee, I played the role of the Lieutenant, a rather gruff, white Federal officer who viewed the Cherokee with contempt. In the scene depicting the beginning of the Trail of Tears, I led the march just behind Major Davis and took a position standing on a boulder on the side stage, rifle in hand, watching as the Cherokee marched off towards Oklahoma. Nightly I would look into the faces of these people walking in the steps of their ancestors and would see scowls and expressions of outright hatred, even from people that I considered friends offstage. It was a moving experience to see history recreated and see the consequences of that same history juxtaposed into that.

Entrance to the Mountainside Theatre, November 2012. Photo by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

The theatre itself is a huge open air amphitheatre that can seat a few thousand. The theatre is surrounded by forest and the backstage area has been constructed to preserve the tree line that gives the theatre a wonderful sylvan quality. The stage and side stages include trees, shrubbery and boulders to complete the picture. Behind the back wall of the stage there is a covered walkway with a props storage area just off stage left. Below this walkway, the terrain drops a bit further which is spanned by a covered walkway, called “The Bridge,” that connects the stage to the rest of the backstage area. Wrapping around the side of the mountain is a long building with the stage manager’s office, costume shop and dressing rooms. At the very end of this building, parallel to the driveway leading up the hill to cast housing, is the laundry room and a small porch called the “laundry porch.”

Entrance to the Mountainside Theatre, November 2012. Photo by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

Except for the very top tier of the actors hired for the production, most other performers in the show served double duty either doing technical work (the Actor Techs or ATs) or working in the costume shop. I worked in the costume shop and part of my duty was to do laundry once a week after the show. Once the show was up and running, everyone went on to “Cherokee Time” where bedtime was sometime between 4AM to sunrise and wake up time was around noon or sometime thereafter. None of us usually had to be at work at the theatre until 6PM, so many of us became partially nocturnal.

Within a few days of my first arrival on “The Hill,” I began to hear stories and legends about the area. One of the costumers in those first few days had gone down to the theatre late one evening for some quiet. As he sat in the empty theatre he heard the sound of a horse running around the theatre. Interestingly, there were no horses in the area nor had any ever been used in the show. Other stories began to surface from some of the longtime cast members of others having odd experiences in the theatre at night. I can recall hearing one story of someone sitting in the theatre alone only to turn his head to see someone sitting in the row behind him staring straight ahead, trancelike.

Another story involved a particular former cast member, since deceased, who would sit on the laundry porch during the show. It was said that people driving past the theatre would still occasionally glimpse her sitting on the porch. An even further tale told of the techies who fired guns offstage for sound effects seeing a Cherokee dancing among the trees in the dark woods offstage. In some versions of the story he was seeing floating some feet off the ground as he danced.

The one legend that I heard almost invariably involved the Cherokee Little People, or Yun’wi Tsundsdi. I described this mythic race in my article on Chimney Rock, please see the article for a better description. In the lore of the area, the Mountainside Theatre had been constructed on ground that was sacred to the Yun’wi Tsundsdi. During the day, the theatre was lent to humans for their uses, but at night it returned to their territory. We were taught to announce ourselves whenever we went to the theatre at night. When we reached the bridge we would call out, “I mean you no harm, don’t mind me.” Failure to do so would cause the Little People to play tricks on you.

However, theatre people do love a good story. I’m not sure how much of this was truly real and how much had been concocted to scare naïve new “Hillbillies.” Nonetheless, this was the mythology that was in place.

At least I thought this was mostly mythology until one night. It was my laundry night and I had dutifully put a load of laundry in the wash. The evening was fairly quiet and there wasn’t much partying. Not really being a partier myself I had been in my room reading a book about the Yun’wi Tsundsdi. Around 3AM I walked down the hill to the laundry room to put the load of laundry in the dryer. As I walked, I muttered the Cherokee name of the Little People repeatedly in an attempt to commit it to memory. It’s a fun name to say. However, I didn’t realize that it also calls them.

I put the laundry in the dryer and started back up the hill to my room in the Boy’s Dorm. Between the end of the laundry porch and the first of the cabins of “Lower Suburbia” there is maybe 100 feet (by my estimation and I’m a poor judge of distance). On one side of the drive is forest with laurel and rhododendron growing thickly among the pines. From this thick forest I suddenly heard the sound of high pitched giggling. It was not drifting down from the ever present crowd at the picnic table outside of the Girl’s Dorm, it was coming from the forest next to me. I stopped for a moment and tried to peer into the shadows. There wasn’t anything to be seen. I uttered a tentative, “Hello?” but it was met with silence.

The view from the laundry porch towards the woods where I heard giggling, October 2012. Photo by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

Again, the giggle issued from the thick shrubbery and again I said hello. No answer. The night time cacophony of the Appalachians can be quite startling to an outsider from the scream of the bobcat (which I thought was a woman being raped when I first heard it) to the various night birds (nighthawks and owls), but this was none of those. It was a childish giggle. Once more I heard it coming from the thick woods directly in front of me. At that point the instinct of fight or flight kicked in and I flew; up the hill and back to the safety of my room. Having been reading about the Yun’wi Tsundsdi, I assumed that it was them that I heard. This was confirmed the next day by a close Cherokee friend.

I can only describe what happened. I’ve thought about it many times since and searched for a more likely explanation, but I can find none. That was my only experience on The Hill. There were times when I would find myself alone at the theatre during my laundry night and I would feel uncomfortable; that feeling of not being alone and sometimes being watched.

While I cannot say for certain that the Mountainside Theatre is haunted, it’s certainly a place that could easily inspire such stories. The play Unto These Hills, although in a different form from Kermit Hunter’s original version, is still performed nightly during the summer and the theatre is open to visitors during the day. Tickets for the show may be purchased at the Cherokee Historical Association Offices, also known as “The Hut,” (which is also haunted) at the bottom on the hill in the village at 564 Tsali Boulevard.

Sources 

The Haunted Inns of Lake Lure, North Carolina

Hickory Nut Gorge was viewed as a vacation destination as early as 1880. That year, Chimney Rock, a 315 foot granite monolith that overlooks the gorge, was made accessible by a series of stairways. In 1904, Chimney Rock was purchased by Dr. Lucius Morse with the aid of twin brothers Hiram and Asahel. Dr. Morse envisioned a mountain resort community within the gorge all surrounding a mountain lake. In 1925, work began on damming the Rocky Broad River and the lake had begun to fill by 1927 when the both town of Lake Lure was established and the Lake Lure Inn opened. The area has grown into a notable resort destination and the Morse family recently sold Chimney Rock to the state of North Carolina to create a state park. Of course, with such activity the area has seen in the past century, it’s no surprise that there are spirits.

Chimney Rock from the visitors’ center parking lot, the closest I could get, unfortunately. Photo 2012, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

Lodge on Lake Lure
361 Charlotte Drive

Opened initially as a retreat for highway patrolmen and their families, the Lodge on Lake Lure was created as a memorial to George Penn, a highway patrolman shot and killed in the line of duty. It’s only appropriate that this 1937 lodge, opened to the public in 1990, would be the current residence of Mr. Penn. His gentle spirit has been seen in Room 4 when he tends to stroll into the occupied room, walk about and then disappear into the closed, and sometimes locked, door.

One former innkeeper referred to the spirit as “naughty.” She reported that he would often steal the toilet paper out of Room 2. When puzzled guests would turn up at the front desk inquiring about the missing toilet tissue, the innkeeper invariably knew that Penn has probably taken the paper out of Room 2 again. Other activity reported from the spirit includes moving flower arrangements and at one time throwing a glass goblet against the wall when someone stated that they wished the ghost would do something. If you stay at the Lodge on Lake Lure, just be sure to keep such wishes to yourself.

1927 Lake Lure Inn and Spa
2771 Memorial Highway

Interest in the spirits of the Lake Lure Inn has risen recently with the publication of a photo taken inside the inn by the Events and Catering Manager in November of last year. The photo, showing an ice sculpture prepared for an event, also shows a figure standing behind the sculpture. While the figure is very fuzzy, the face appears to be that of a young boy or man. The photo may be viewed here.

The 1927 Lake Lure Inn. Photo 2012, by Lewis Powell IV,
all rights reserved.

Lake Lure’s initial popularity with the construction of the Lake Lure Inn and the filling of Lake Lure was believed to be on the rise. The hotel was visited by such names of the period as novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, President Calvin Coolidge and future president Franklin Roosevelt. But no one could have predicted the Great Depression that would follow the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and how it would sink the economy and, by extension, resorts like Lake Lure. The Inn limped through the 1930’s until the outbreak of World War II.

In 1943, the Third Army Air Force leased the Lake Lure Inn for use as a convalescence home for wounded and shell-shocked soldiers. One soldier who spent time at Lake Lure later described it as “a benediction of nature on us all after the horrors of war.” An army band under the direction of Albert Hague (who was later an actor on Broadway and in the role of Professor Shorovsky in the TV series Fame) would serenade dances or while the patients stared off at the sun-dappled lake.

The army’s use of the inn ended in 1945 and the inn has remained popular. Though there are some ghosts left over from the inn’s more painful moments. Lon Strickler’s marvelous blog, Phantoms and Monsters, provides the account of a former inn staff member who had a few run-ins with the spirits. The staff member speaks of seeing shadows in the spa area and having their name called by a man with a low-gravelly voice.

The staff member continues and describes the other spirits said to be witnessed by guests including a woman who was supposedly murdered in the 1930s in Room 217. A man, believed to be Dr. Lucius Morse, has been seen in the dining room. Articles on recent paranormal investigations speculate that he may also be the spirit seen and heard in the spa.

Paranormal Scene Investigators, a paranormal investigation group from nearby Forest City, has performed a number of investigations of the inn and always seem to have discovered very interesting evidence. Among some of the more interesting evidence is a woman’s scream recorded on two occasions in Room 217, where the murder may have taken place. Oddly, the screams, recorded on two separate occasions, sound almost identical. Other evidence includes an interesting photo of a ball of energy in one room. While the group cannot conclusively state that the inn is haunted, they will state that there is paranormal activity. Certainly, the spirits here and at the Lodge have picked lovely spots to spend eternity.

Sources

  • Baughman, Scott. “Things weren’t normal at this LL convention.” The (Forest City, NC) Daily Courier. 11 March 2009.
  • Bunch, Pam. “Guests, ghosts share Lake Lure Inn.” The (Forest City, NC) Daily Courier. 28 February 2007.
  • Chimney Rock State Park. “History: Lake Lure and Hickory Nut Gorge Tell a Story.” Chimney Rock State Park Website. Accessed 22 April 2011.
  • Chimney Rock State Park. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 22 April 2011.
  • DePriest, Joe. “A place that healed sore soldier’s souls.” The Charlotte Observer. 23 November 2003.
  • Evans, Laura. “Scare up a spooky place to stay.” The News & Observer. 10 January 2007.
  • “Ghost hunt a high-tech operation.” The (Forest City, NC) Daily Courier. 28 February 2007.
  • Justice, Birchette T. “Chimney Rock and Lake Lure.” in The Heritage of Rutherford County, North Carolina, Vol. 1. Winston-Salem, NC: Hunter Publishing, 1984.
  • Strikler, Lon. “Ghostly Gatherings at the Lake Lure Inn.” Phantoms and Monsters. 21 December 2010.
  • Turnage, Sheila. Haunted Inns of the Southeast. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2001.