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VOLUME EIGHT
NUMBER THIRTY-EIGHT
MURPHY—“THE TOWN BEAUTIFUL”
Hustling and Growing North Carolina Town Where Mountains Tower, Crystal Rivers Flow, and Flashing Cascades Leap
and Gleam —Education and Commerce Wedded in Greater Murphy’s Upward March.
ROWNING a magnificent hill
“high and lifted up,” and spread
ing out on a sweeping tableland,
whose rock-ribbed base is washed
by the juncture of those beautiful
streams —the historic Hiawassee
and the picturesque Valley rivers,
I found the old new town of Mur
phy, pulsing with the leaping
C
blood of a new life and positively enthusiastic
over the prospect of being not only a great
summer resort, but likewise the commercial
and manufacturing metropolis of all those glor
ious mountains.
I had remembered Murphy, N. C., chiefly
as the place where I 4 ‘got off the train” com-
ing from Asheville to attend the com
mencement of famous Hiawassee High
School —of McConnell and Truett
twenty-five miles away —and I had re
membered it as the point where I came
to take the train for Atlanta, after
spending the night with my old friend,
President John Sharp, who reigns in
“might and majesty” over the des
tinies of Young Harris College—grand
ly engaged in the business of growing
men and women—some eighteen miles
away.
That was only a brief decade ago—
and Murphy’s chief distinction then
came from being the “getting off
place” for two railroads —the South
ern railway from Asheville and the L.
and N. for Atlanta.
What a Change!
But behold —what a change! The
first thing that greets the eye in the distance
is the new Hotel Regal, a superb three-story
brick building which would do honor to a
city of 25,000 people. And, sakes alive! when
you get up on the public square you find on
each side of the main streets that are a hun
dred feet wide, regular “city-fied” concrete
sidewalks twelve feet wide. The sight almost
takes the breath of the man who saw Murphy,
the village, a few years ago.
A “Spunky,” Progressive Town.
But passing by the thirty-odd business
houses, retail and wholesale, passing by her
big furniture factory (now doubling its capac
ity)—passing by her roller mills, her overall
factory, her woodworking factory, her matress
factory and other manufacturing enterprises,
present and to come—l have hardly been able
to wait to introduce the friend of progress and
education to the most beautiful public school
building I have ever seen in a town of fifteen
WRITE US FOR PLAN TO MAKE CHRISTMAS MONEY—See Page Two
ATLANTA, GA., NOVEMBER
hundred people in all my educational wander
ings over America. Look at the picture on
this page—think of it full of bright children
and a dozen teachers, and gather some idea of
the “spunk” and plucky progress of such a
town. But you must go inside and look at the
superb completeness of that beautiful auditor
ium to properly appreciate the educational en
terprise of the community.
Every time I see such an auditorium in such
a school building in such a town I feel very
much like I want to go and “swear out a war
rant” for the average school board and have
’em all gloriously “arrested” for not knowing
how to construct a building fit to attract and
inspire the youth of all the surrounding coun-
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BEAUTIFUL NEW SCHOOL BUILDING, MURPHY, N. C.
try—and especially for the folly that so often
says: “We just didn’t have money enough
to put a good auditorium in our new building.”
And if you press the proposition that, for the
sake of the school children and their parents
they didn’t have money enough to leave it out
—that an auditorium is the most important,
far-reaching room in the whole building, some
foolish, commercialized, short-sighted city
father will answer: “Aw, I want my children
to learn their books —they aint got time to be
a’trottin’ up stairs a’singing songs every morn
ing.” But no such narrow spirit reigned in
the school board in the progressive, far-seeing
town of Murphy. They believe in that psychic,
unifying influence —that patriotic thrill that
stirs the heart of the pupils as they gather
every morning—their parents often with them,
singing the songs that bless and listening to
golden truths from teacher or visitor that may
give more real inspiration in one bright half-
By WILLIAM D. UPSHAW, Editor.
hour than arithmetic and grammar, algebra
and physics can give in a solid year.
Os course the reader understands by this
time that a good auditorium in a school build
ing is one of my “hobbies” —and Murphy’s
surpassingly beautiful school building has left
nothing to be desired.
Memory of a Partnership Commencement.
Bidden by President T. J. Peeples, of Mur
phy Institute, the promising Home Board Bap
tist School of that mountain section, to deliver
two commencement messages, I saw the grati
fying picture of a partnership commencement.
Murphy Institute being away up on a hill —
the highest point above the town, the public
school auditorium which is centrally located,
was tendered for the commencement
exercises and the whole community en
tered into a season of good fellowship
together.
I have this suggestion to make to
Murphy: The location is so beautiful
and healthful that the town could eas
ily be made a great educational center,
and several other denominations ought
to be induced, if possible, to build
district or synodical schools at Murphy.
A Little Woman’s Influence.
There is one thing about that com
mencement which I can never forget.
It is the influence of that wonderful
little woman, Mrs. Prof. Peeples, over
those mountain boys and girls. Un
trained as they had been before coming
to Murphy Institute, she had taken
them under her special care while her
faithful husband looked after the gen
eral work of the school, and presented to that
commencement audience a trained chorus which
electrified everybody. You could fairly see the
genius of that teacher in every movement of
every pupil, every expression of the face, every
intonation of the voice. The spell of that mus
ic is upon me still.
Another fine bit of partnership came when
it was discovered that unwittingly an Alka
hest Lyceum date had been made on Monday
(my lecture night) for the Price Concert Com
pany. And we didn’t do a thing but prune off
a little of each and put the two together—and
between “John and His Hat” and that win
some and bewitching Price concert (there’s
absolutely nothing better of its kind in this
country) the people declared they never got so
much for their money in all their born days.
President Peeples has been called to another
field and his successor at Murphy Institute is
(Continued on Page 4.)
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