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WCU - Canton Champion Fibre Company

Robertson talks about 'Spy House'

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  • In this undated biographical article, Reuben B. Robertson talks with columnist Ted Carter about many things including travelling to Canton, North Carolina from Ohio in 1905, building Champion Fibre Company, and his current house.
  • Ted Carter "I live up on the hill above Asheville now," he said. "It's a thousand feet higher than this and several degrees cooler. My home was called 'The Spy House' during World War II. A Cuban lady had it built; a mysterious German actually managed the construction and surrounded the property with a high spiked-iron fence. "There's a gate at the upper end where they had a telephone to the house. Anyone who wanted in had to call up first. A story abounds that Asheville's Mayor Holmes Bryson stopped by to pay his respects and called on the phone. The German listened as Bryson explained h i s mission. 'Is that all you wanted?,' he asked. Then he abruptly hung up. The mayor never got in. Later the FBI came and took the German away. The woman apparently had no hostile connections." The speaker was Reuben B. Robertson. The house he was talking about was "Hopewood" up on Sunset Mountain. He's been living there about eight years now. "When I moved in, there were a lot of odds and ends I nev

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Canton Champion Fibre Company

When it opened in 1908, the Champion Fibre Company was the largest pulp mill in the world. For 60 years it was under the leadership of Reuben "Mr. Champion" B. Robertson and was a...

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