Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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View from Stearns' home, Solitude

  • wcu_picturing-5591.jpg
  • This 1941 image looks north from the road to Solitude, the home of Irving Kip Stearns (1895-1942) and his wife Betty Grueninger Stearns (1896-1971) on Hospital Hill and is part of the Stearns-Grueninger collection. The image shows the home of Rubert and Callie Morrow Nobles as well as the mountains Kelly Bennett Peak, Sharptop, and Coburn Knob. I. K. Stearns was president of Carolina Wood Turning Company from 1928 until his death in 1942. Stearns’ grandfather, Jeremiah Shank, started the company in 1903 as Bryson City Pump Works and it grew to be a thriving industry for the community. In 1911, Stearns was in the first graduating class of Bryson City High School. He had one son, Joseph Pease Stearns (1917-1948). In 1935, I. K. married Betty Grueninger.