Tom D.,
How close to Spruce Pine are you?
Memories...
Our neighbor, Sally Tappan grew up in Spruce Pine. There is a Tappan St. in Spruce Pine. Her daddy was a longtime sheriff there and she had about a gallon and a half of real nice moonshine he had confiscated from a rogue still in the hills above Spruce Pine as proof (pun intended). Every New Years Eve she'd pull it out and there'd be a toast. In memory of Sally's mother there is an expanse of irises and for her father's memory a Dogwood tree Sally planted in her yard next to us here in Delaware.
Sally's family the Tappans, and their friends, the Phillips were two of the first five families to arrive and set up homes in Spruce Pine (Sally is buried there in Phillips Cemetery up Phillips Lane) and her greatgrandfather laid out the streets in the city naming a lot of the streets there as the place grew.
A sometimes heard rumor (have never seen documentation to prove it) has it the Tappans wanted to name it Spruce, NC due to the magnificent spruce trees and the Phillips wanted to call it Pine, NC due to the great pines there. They settled on Spruce-Pine.
Sally gave us many glass objects produced by her favorite glassblowers in Spruce Pine. She had a rocking chair that Woody's Chair Shop in Spruce Pine made in the same run that produced the one for President John Kennedy. That was passed down to a son when she died.
After the International Tree Climbers Rendezvous in October of 2009 down in Forsythe County, NC - I drove over to Spruce Pine and stayed with Jerry and Mary Phillips (Sally's youngest sister) and visited Sally's grave. Jerry runs a large Christmas Tree Farm right outside Spruce Pine, and it is a little ironic to me that the original Phillip's great-grandson (nearing retirement now) spent his adult years growing and selling spruce and pine (and fir) christmas trees.
If you're in Spruce Pine, look up to the West and you'll see the open scar mines from feldspar and gypsum and other things which factored into the local economy. Many earlier US toilet and sink manufacturers made their products from minerals mined there. That industry is pretty much shut down due to the cheap ceramics coming out of China these days though they still get most of the ultra-pure quartz used to make semiconductors there.
I attached a (grainy) pic of one of the Spruce Pine blown-glass Christmas Tree ornaments Sally gave us over the years:
