1895 Madole Plat of Spring Mountain Park above Columbus
This developer’s plat is a rare example of commercial lithography printed in Ohio by Cleveland Lithograph Co. It’s the only known 19th century example of such a plat where half-tone photographs are embedded in a large-format print.
It’s not a map, except for streams and the portion showing early Town of Columbus. An accurate topographic map, with elevation contours, was created later by US Geological Survey in 1905, which depicts some roadways and the few buildings constructed by that time. Their mapping deployed sophisticated equipment and techniques which weren’t used by local surveyors here in 1895.
Elevation contours in later 1905 topographic map
show steep mountain grades,
not communicated on Madole’s plat.
Frank McIntyre Stearns, 1875.
Frank M. Stearns of Cleveland commissioned this plat for commercial publicity of his picturesque “Spring Mountain Park”, his grand dream for the south-facing escarpment of White Oak Mountain which for the most part was never realized. He envisioned well-off buyers would build vacation cottages on the platted steep mountainside lots, to enjoy dramatic views. A sharp economic recession in the United States, which lasted from 1893 to 1897, discouraged lot sales. Then in 1907 came a financial panic that destroyed hopes his ambitious project would succeed. Extremely steep roadways made it nearly impossible to access his development in early automobiles.
Log Cabin Inn
Frank’s brother David owned adjacent property west on the Mountain nearer Tryon Peak, where Skyuka Hotel was built, its Skyuka post office established in 1894. The hotel indicated on Madole’s plat for Frank Stearns was the smaller Log Cabin Inn, very fashionable in the emerging rustic Arts & Crafts style. Its Stearns post office was established in 1903, becoming White Oak Mountain community’s post office, to replace the Skyuka Hotel’s which was discontinued.
Arriving guests were met at Tryon train depot by well-dressed Black drivers of spiffy mule-drawn carriages, for an exciting ride up to the hostelries along with their luggage. Day trippers could rent horses to ride up the mountain for a luncheon. Hemlock Shoals was especially popular for picnics by the pretty waterfall.
Locations of seven cascades on the Mountain aren’t specified. Some may well have been on David’s property. The image of the County Courthouse is identical to a known photograph of it from a different source. But the photographer is unidentified.
halftone of Hemlock Shoals
The Frank Stearns house, Ben Creggan. Courtesy of Sandy Taylor.
Civil engineer Alvin Madole (1849 – 1917) drafted this plat of F.M. Stearns’s property. Born in Illinois, Madole attended Allegheny College in Pennsylvania and served as Methodist minister in Columbus. His son Harley assisted Madole in this survey work. By 1900 Alvin Madole moved to Spartanburg, S.C. and by 1905 to Chautauqua, New York. Harley in 1902 married an Atlanta woman and relocated there.
Cleveland Lithograph was run by Switzerland-born Frederick Hinderman (1858 – 1917) along with his brother John, and Dewey Hinsdale who learned the litho trade in Indianapolis. Fred’s wife Eliza had once worked in Cleveland as a servant next-door to George W. Pack, lumber merchant and later a prominent entrepreneur and benefactor in Asheville. Stearns and his brother David were friends of Mr. Pack — and became interested in the North Carolina mountains too.
The scale of this plat is based on cadastral survey of land surface. Hence where actual slopes are steep, horizontal distances between points are exaggerated compared to a true map. (Thus an overlay of the 1905 topo to the 1895 plat isn’t accurate.)
Frank Stearns was founder and benefactor of an academy which operated in the Town of Columbus across from the courthouse. His grand plan to build a larger campus out of town under the mountain, as shown on this Spring Mountain Park plat, did not come to fruition. Stearns School, a public institution, was built in 1917 after his death.
Photo of Shunkawauken Falls by Julia Beckham.
One of the cascades shown in plat.
He was a visionary backer of railroad projects in the southern Appalachians. The plat’s inset railroad route between Pittsburgh and Western North Carolina was in 1895 merely conjectural. No such railroad was ever built through the middle of West Virginia, but by then the new rail line shown, via Knoxville, from Ohio was almost done.
Michael J. McCue
July 18, 2024
According to cartographer John Shallow, “With cartographers, the north arrow or compass rose is kind of a signature. It is an opportunity to add a personal touch. The North arrow is clearly meant to look like an Indian arrow. Not unheard of, but not common either. It suggests Stearns' affinity or curiosity for the Native American culture.”
The 23-inch by 43-inch print was professionally conserved in 2024 by HF Group in Greensboro, NC for Polk County Historical Association, with support from the Shadwell Conservation Fund of American Historical Print Collectors Society and local donors Mrs. Earl Taylor and Mrs. Harold M. Mathers.
