Highlands Through The Years

Written By: Stuart Ferguson - Shakespeare and Company | Issue: August 2023 | Photograph By: Elizabeth Bryant

Cynthia Strain

Farm Stands in Scaly Mountain; Queene Anne’s Lace and Joe Pye Weed in Horse Cove; Shortoff Mountain rising above the paddock and stables in Cold Springs: These are just some of the beautiful, atmospheric images in Cynthia Strain’s “Highlands, North Carolina, Through the Years: A Photographic Journal.”

Whether your family has been here since the 19th century or this is your first visit to the Plateau, you will swoon over this book. Of course, there are also images of Main Street; the country clubs and churches; early settler homes, summer “cottages” and Joe Webb cabins; along with Cynthia’s signature landscapes, waterfalls and wildlife photos.

Here are The Bascom and Helen’s Barn, Satulah and Whiteside Mountains. Cynthia even has an evocative image of the spooky, old, two-story boat house on Cullasaja Drive (finally demolished in 2019, alas) on Mirror Lake that was the object of many family walks in the 1960s, when we had a house nearby. I still remember the crunch of gravel underfoot and how cool it was even in the summer, thanks to the shade of the trees lining the road—such a relief from hot Florida! And Cynthia has mixed in historic black-and-white historic images taken in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

She has been here for more than 40 years, painting, making beautiful custom frames at her Mill Creek Gallery (which was right next to the bookstore in Village Square) after working for her parents Richard and Barbara Strain at their late, great, Bird Barn, which catered to our ornithological needs and also provided the best home-made candy!

Cynthia’s brilliant sister Tracy was my dear friend and the Hudson Librarian in the 1980s. Cynthia has donated her time as a leader or board member to almost every art or nature related organization around Highlands, whether it’s the Art League or BEAR Task Force, and she founded the Highlands Village Square Art and Craft Show (todays Mountaintop Show). She has an amazing eye for composing just the right shot.

“Highlands Through the Years” is available at several fine stores in town, and Cynthia will be signing copies at Acorns on Saturday, September 23. If you were lucky enough to grab a copy of Cynthia’s gorgeous earlier book “Highlands Through the Seasons”—now almost impossible to find—you’ll know you need to get her latest. Some books make you smart; some books make you sleepy; “Highlands, North Carolina, Through the Years” makes you happy, nostalgic and full of hope. I cannot wait for her next book, on Cashiers!