The Southern Railway is authority for the statement, that in addition to the people who spend their vacation period in western North Carolina now, at least 25,000 more will flock here the first summer there are accommodations to care for them; and that is only the beginning. If accommodations can be arranged for—and these people are informed—and, after spending their vacation here, return to their respective communities satisfied with the accommodations and treatment afforded them, each one can be counted on to act as an advertiser of this section of our state as a vacation resort. So the number of regular Western North Carolina vacationists will increase each year in proportion to our ability and willingness to care for them. The situation at present may be likened to that of the farmer who knows he has a productive and consequently valuable piece of land and allows it to lie fallow.
By ignoring the possibilities of providing the right kind of vacation accommodations for the thousands who would come here from such as Cincinnati, New Orleans, Memphis, etc., the citizens, and speaking more particularly, the farmers of Western North Carolina, are practically refusing to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars these vacationists would leave here each season.
We speak specifically of the farmer, because it is in large measure his opportunity that is being lost. Thousands of people in the cities mentioned cannot afford to live in high priced hotels. Thousands more, particularly those with children, do not care for the life of the summer hotels, but choose the change to life on the farm with its quiet simplicity and closeness to nature—providing—the farm house is equipped with those simple conveniences to which the city dweller is accustomed, and considers fundamental and indispensable to his comfort, and that the food is wholesome, of variety and well cooked.
Western North Carolina Inc., with headquarters in Asheville was organized to serve all the people of this section of the State. Its executive committee and officers are confident tat in natural scenic beauty and invigorating yet equable climate, it is unsurpassed in the United States. One of its objectives is to acquaint the people, particularly those who are accustomed to take a regular summer or fall vacation, with the accessibility, charms and health-giving attributes of these western counties of our State, then induce them to come here and by so doing, to provide an added source of income for the farmer who is progressive enough to realize what that increase in income will add to his well-being and that of his family.
There are thousands of such farmers in Western Carolina, men of vision and capacity, who are willing, and what is more important, equipped and prepared to accept from two to 10 paying guests this summer. But, they have no means of advertising the fact. They are, as it were, cut off from a source of supply that means added comfort and increased prospects. That is where Western North Carolina Inc. can and will function for them. Western North Carolina Inc. is now engaged in compiling a list of farm houses in this section, in which summer boarders can be accommodated with profit to the farmer and satisfaction to the guest. In compiling this list, Western North Carolina Inc. must have the assistance of the progressive farmers in every one of our 25 counites. That assistance will cost them exactly two cents—the price of postage to mail a letter informing Western North Carolina Inc. of this desire to increase their income by accepting summer boarders. Western North Carolina Inc. will, in turn, answer the communication, setting forth the minimum standard that has been adopted for farm boarding houses—inquiring as to rates, location, etc.—and will then, if the reply is satisfactory, list the farm home and recommend it as a vacation home to some of those 25,000 people who seek to come here.
--Western North Carolina Inc., 6 Government St., Asheville, N.C.
From the front page of the Carolina Mountaineer, Monday, March 12, 1923
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