Portrait of the Past: Horace Kephart at Hall Cabin, 100 years ago
“I love the wilderness because there are no shams in it,” author and outdoorsman Horace Kephart said. In 1904, at age 41, he quit his job as a librarian in St. Louis, Missouri, recuperated from a nervous breakdown and went to Western North Carolina, where, he said, “I could build up strength anew and indulge my lifelong fondness for hunting, fishing and exploring new ground.”
He established himself along Hazel Creek in Swain County and later in Bryson City and began writing feature stories that contributed to his 1913 classic, “Our Southern Highlanders.” He spent some summers in a remote herder’s cabin called Hall Cabin on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, the “back of beyond,” as he called it.
One day, a lame hiker from Cincinnati approached him there. “If I had missed your cabin I would have starved to death,” he said. “I have been out in the laurel thickets, now, three days and two nights.” Kephart made him coffee and prepared food in the fireplace pictured here.
This image is the ninth of 10 photo features celebrating WCU’s Special Collections, part of a larger series about archives in our region. To learn more, visit wcudigitalcollection.cdmhost.com and Hunter Library’s and the Mountain Heritage Center’s online exhibit of Kephart’s life and works.
Dive into more history:
• Portrait of the Past: Swannanoa River circa 1895
• Portrait of the Past: Joe Rice of Brittain Cove, 2007
• Portrait of the Past: CCC camp in Smokemont, 1933
—Rob Neufeld, RNeufeld@charter.net