Other men reportedly suffered similar fates. Word quickly spread through whispers and rumor that something had happened to Ike while working on the road.Īccidents happened frequently on the roads construction. The doctor said there was nothing that could be done. Elsie said her brother had a giant cavity rotting away in his chest, where his heart was. Although they were poor, Elsie’s family sent for the town doctor who was still traveling by horse. He was lying in bed with eyes wide open and from his mouth made no sound. His behavior started shifting.Įlsie said by the third day her brother was catatonic. He talked about it all night and into the next day. They were under her spell and possession. It was rumored some of the local women, native and non-native, were involved in some witchcraft led by Spear Finger. She loved her high places, solitude, and sometimes came down to lower ground to conjure up some spirits. Spear Finger was a wood witch of Cherokee legend. He stared into her black eyes until she pulled the finger away. She drove it into his chest and though it did not pierce his flesh he said it was this burning, stinging sensation as if she had pierced his heart. This woman pointed a long finger at him, a finger longer than any he’d ever seen.
He froze absolutely scared of what was happening and feeling incredibly confused. He said she was old and had long black hair. One of the women saw him and made her way over. He said they were dancing and chanting: Uwe la na tsiku. He said one morning fairly early he was on the job site and passed into the woods to relieve himself when he stumbled upon a circle of naked women. Her brother Ike claims he saw a coven of witches in the woods nearby. He was about 16 and dropped out of school to make extra money for the family.Įlsie told me many stories about that road.
Her younger brother had gotten a job working on building the road. My great grandfather served in World War II so he was gone. She was a newlywed only recently moved out of the house. The construction on the road to nowhere had begun in 1943 when Elsie would have been about 20 years old. I would lie in bed awake after a visit to Elsie’s house and cry at the thought she might do something similar to me. This story was gruesome and absolutely scared the wits out of me. She relished in the part about the little girl freezing to death. She described how cold and hungry the child was as she clawed and clawed at the granite covering the opening of the cave. She would tell me about Nancy climbing the top of Utah Mountain and stuffing the little girl in the cave. She had moved to Bryson City after serving a prison sentence for burying her very much alive two year old granddaughter in a rock cave. Nancy Dude was an infamous murder in these parts. She loved to tell us ghost stories mostly to get that wide eyed and frightened reaction. She’d pull my hair or pinch me really hard which she said was just a reminder to be a good girl. She’d lock us in her basement in the dark after telling us there was an ‘old devil’ who lived there. When I would be left in her care which was not very often she’d play mean tricks on me and my younger cousin. And she really enjoyed frightening little kids. Her own kids would call her “the old bitch” because she was so mean. I can’t imagine the woman ever being in a good mood. To describe her as curmudgeonly would be putting it lightly. I called her by her first name “Elsie” never Grandma or Mamaw or any of the other names one might call their grandparent. I remember being a kid and visiting my great Grandmother. His family had lived there for about a 100 years or more before he finally moved a few counties over. You can’t beat Western North Carolina or the Great Smokies for natural beauty.īut there is way more to the story than what people will discuss in public.
There are some great hiking trails around as well. A lot of tourists visit the road for the novelty of a peculiar road that dead ends. Many who called this area home were immediately displaced and promised that the completion of HWY 288 would allow them to still access remnants of 'home,' like family cemeteries and grave sites. It all started in 1930s and 40s when Swain County sold an abundant amount of private land to the national government for the creation of Fontana Lake and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Locals are very bitter about the situation 60 + years later. If you visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park now on the route to get out to the road, you’ll see a large homemade sign that says just that. Ever since I was a kid growing up in Western North Carolina I have heard stories about the road which was never finished and stops in the woods.
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