The growth of suburbs also highlighted the decade of the 1950s in Henderson County. The urban population decreased by 3.1 percent from 1950 to 1960, according to the 1960 census report. The only area designated an urban area by the U.S. Census from 1950 to 1960 was Hendersonville. There were 6,103 people living in Hendersonville in 1950 and 5,911 were living in the town in 1960.
The rural population, defined by the census report as the rest of Henderson County, saw a growth from 24,818 people to 30,252 people.
Housing and construction boomed. More than 4,644 houses were built between 1950 and 1960, more than doubling the number of houses from 1940 to 1950.
The 1950s also saw the beginning of “trailer parks” in the county. During World War II “house trailers” were used for war-time housing. During the post-war years approximately 8 percent of the nation’s population lived in “house trailers.” During the 1950s the house trailers became more widespread and grew from 8 feet in width to 10 feet in width, and began to be called mobile homes. By the end of the decade there were three trailer parks listed in the vicinity of Hendersonville. Two were located on the Spartanburg Highway (U.S. 176) – Hendersonville Trailer Park and McGraw’s Trailer Park. One was located on Rutledge Drive, Maxwell Trailer Park. It is not known how many may have been located in other areas of the county.
A total of 36,163 people lived in Henderson County in 1960, a 16.95 percent increase in population from 1950 when the population was 30,921. The median age was 31.2 years in 1960 and 28.9 years in 1950. The 65 and over population increased from 2,650 people in 1950 to 4,274 in 1960, a 61 percent increase. There was also an increase in the under 18 population. This age group increased from 10,674 in 1950 to 12,559 in 1960, a 17.7 percent increase.
Approximately 75 percent of the county’s population in 1960 was native to North Carolina.
The median income for Henderson County in 1960 was $3,894. This was close to the state median income at $3,956.
The black population in the county continued to decline from 1950 to 1960. The black population was 1,966 persons, 5.4 percent of the population. This is a 1.3 percent decrease in population from 1950.
Civic clubs by the end of the decade included Civitan, Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, and Executives. Fraternal organizations were the Elks, Masons, Moose, Shrine and Woodmen of the World. There was also the Junior Woman’s Club, Business and Professional Women’s Club, Woman’s Club and several garden clubs.
The YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) was located at 845 Willow Road in 1958.
Twice in the 1950s Henderson County will lose land to cities in adjoining counties. In 1903, Henderson County lost the town of Saluda when the N.C. General Assembly, without Henderson County’s agreement, placed Saluda into Polk County. By the end of the 1950s, more land was lost to Greenville, S.C., and to Asheville. For the land annexed by Asheville, see “Transportation and Communication.”
The county lost land in the communities of Mountain Page, Green River and Tuxedo when Greenville County began purchasing land and using eminent domain to take land that was within Henderson County.
Today, the Greenville, South Carolina, Watershed separates the Henderson County communities of Green River and Tuxedo from the Mountain Page community on the east.
In the 1950s, Greenville County bought “for pennies on the acre,” according to many residents, land in Henderson County for the watershed. County residents whose families had lived on the land for generations were forced to move. Land that once was a part of Henderson County, its heritage and history, now became part of South Carolina.
In the mid-1950s, the Ward, Revis, Gordon, Russell, Morgan, Staton, Case, Bell, Bradley, Pruitt, Thomas and Sharp families packed their belongings, herded up farm animals, dug up shrubbery and moved to today’s communities of Tuxedo, Green River, Mountain Page, Saluda, East Flat Rock and further south into South Carolina.
What is now forests containing wild hogs, bears, and deer once was fields and pastures.
The watershed enforced restrictive rules on the property. People could not enter the watershed, even to maintain old family cemeteries. Historical family cemeteries and much of the church cemetery of Piney Grove Baptist, just a few yards into today’s Polk County, were left to nature and descendants are not allowed to visit.
“Some families lost hundreds of acres and they got very little for it,” said Bill Russell, whose family has lived in the Mountain Page community since the early 1800s.
Sections of the old U.S. 25 (what was known in the late 1700s as the Saluda Path and later as the Old Buncombe Turnpike) is now in the middle of the lake that Greenville County, S.C., made when the watershed was established, and within other sections of the watershed.
The Greenville Watershed contains land in Henderson and Polk counties and Greenville County, S.C.
Today, the houses are gone, the roads have disappeared and the cemeteries are overgrown.
About 75 acres of the “Kingdom of Happy Land” is now within the Greenville Watershed. The area of the Carson-Vance Duel and the Posey Mountain Confederate breastworks are within the watershed.
The famous moonshine area of the Dark Corners is mostly within the watershed today.
In his book From the Banks of the Oklawaha, Frank L. FitzSimons wrote, “The people who lived in the Dark Corner were good people, honest, dependable, churchgoing and good neighbors…nearly everybody who lived in the area, though, made illegal whiskey; blockade liquor. The Dark Corner was famous for the clear, potent whisky …”For more information, visit http://hendersonheritage.com/reminiscing-about-life-in-the-watershed/
http://www.tryondailybulletin.com/2015/04/07/merrittsville-now-only-a-nostalgic-memory/
http://hendersonheritage.com/green-river/
http://hendersonheritage.com/flat-rock-2/
http://hendersonheritage.com/saluda-mountain-passage-of-palmetto-trail/
http://hendersonheritage.com/380-2/
http://effectivepixels.com/2015/08/07/mountain-magic-the-history-of-the-blue-ridge-forest-on-hogback-mountain/
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