SCRAPED FILL AREA, CALIFORNIA CREEK

This road has been promised to people in Western North Carolina for at least forty years. Every governor who ran for office in that period made commitments to complete this road, but everybody had heard that so often. That’s why in ‘93 and ‘94, when they turned the first shovelful of dirt down here to build the interchange, not to extend the road, but to finally build the interchange, I think people snapped to attention and said, ‘Wait a minute. This is really going to happen, and if it’s going to happen, what are we going to do to plan for that so that we can control that change?’ There’s some of us that didn’t want us to become another gas station stop on I-26, or find a number of businesses in the community that were incompatible with the lifestyle we’ve grown used to.

Ray Rapp, Mayor, Mars Hill, NC