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ville to the lumber mill at Helen, with a stop at Cleveland. Following
its arrival, many White County residents, after cotton picking, took
the train to market in Gainesville where they exchanged part of their
harvest and other farm produce for ready-made goods unavailable
closer to home. Nearly all of the Mossy Creek women, for instance,
used the occasion to purchase their camp-meeting finery in advance of
that momentous event held every August.
By 1925, the pace of change had quickened appreciably. The automobile
arrived on the scene heralding a veritable revolution in lifeways.
After 1930, work crews graded and paved the road past the
Meaders pottery to link it with the Appalachian Scenic Highway
extending from Canada to Miami, Florida. The Rural Electrification
Administration brought in electric power lines in 1936 to include most
of Mossy Creek —a great boon to an area formerly dependent on
kerosene for illumination.
Two additional events — the Great Depression and World War II —
capped die decline of the small family farm. Although a number of
returning war veterans attempted to resume farming in the
mid-1940s, most "went busted" within the space of a year or two and
ultimately decided to seek employment opportunities away from
home —notably in the automobile manufacturing centers of the
North. Only part of this out-migration diminished as a result of the
growth of local commerce after 1950. Commercial poultry and dairy
farms sprang up along widi cattle and hog ranches. New lumber mills
appeared to exploit the region's timber resources. In addition, zipper
and textile factories moved into the area between 1952 and 1954.
While growth in the local economy has not been dramatic, it has
been fairly steady to the present. Cleveland gradually acquired one
bank and then a second, a small Baptist junior college, a department
store, and several used car dealerships. Today it is only a two-hour
drive on well-maintained thoroughfares from downtown Adanta and
is instantly in touch with the world through radio and television. As
the "Gateway to the Smoky Mountains," the town sees a fair number
of tourists, some of whom have established homes locally. Longtime
residents appreciate the fact that the newcomers have not yet transformed
Cleveland into an ersatz Bavarian village complete with
A-frame cabins and gingerbread as has happened in nearby Helen,
Georgia. There persists, however, a feeling that too much change has
already destroyed much of the social fabric of the community.
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