Historical Society expands its presence
“Here’s a story, but it can’t be printed.”
Dan Barron is the Chair of the Mitchell County Historical Society’s board and an accomplished storyteller, who has spent his life collecting local lore.
Barron oversaw the Historical Society’s McBee Museum next to the county courthouse in Bakersville last Saturday and Sunday, as part of the organization’s open house to celebrate its expansion of exhibition space. While dressed casually, albeit with a Santa cap, on Sunday, he was on hand Saturday wearing a tricorn hat and an 18th-century men’s blouse, disguised as his
“Baker had two different wives, and I managed to be a descendant of all three,” Barron said laughing.
Mitchell County is a place constructed by names: Baker, McKinney, Young, Blevins, Gouge, Silver, Buchanan. Their histories, including the unwritten parts, reside at the Historical Society as yellowed news clippings, personal letters, and as oral history.
“They weren’t siblings but distant cousins,” said MCHS Treasurer Rhonda Gunter, responding to a query about two historical citizens of Spruce Pine.
The society’s archivist, Jaime Shrier, called Gunter the “resident genealogist,” a term Gunter enjoyed hearing. Like Barron, she too is a descendant of David Baker, and knows the area’s history intimately.
The Society’s open house was to inaugurate an even larger presence of the organization within the courthouse itself. Other than Gunter’s office and the archives inside what was once the county’s deeds office, as well as an exhibit space across the hall called the “Turn of the Century Room,” dedicated to the work of women, the county has granted the right for the society to expand into the main hall on the first floor, where the organization has created a new exhibit space, one which will feature temporary shows.
The space currently explores Mitchell County’s well-established music scene, from shape-note singing to bluegrass groups, along with such recognized musicians as Rhonda Gouge. The historic programs, small-label records with their album covers, and archival photographs were assembled by Sam McKinney.
Back at the McBee Museum, Dan Barron was giving tours of the exhibits there, including the work of photographer and newspaperman Jim Jones and a display case of World War II memorabilia, including a vial containing sand from Iwo Jima that a survivor brought home. Afterwards, Barron sat as his table to pore over stories in an issue from The Mitchell Ledger, a now defunct Bakersville newspaper, from 1975.
“Believe it or not, there have been 14 different newspapers in Mitchell County,” Barron said. “Reading them, as many as we have, fills in a lot of gaps.”
He gestured back to the display on the photographer Jim Jones.
“He wrote for newspapers between here and Asheville, but I still haven’t found one of his stories. Someday.”