Balsam’s principal claim to fame, of course, is that it’s situated at 3,315 feet above sea level, where the highest standard gauge railway east of the Rocky Mountains crosses the Balsam Mountain Range. The Asheville to Murphy branch of the Southern Railway was constructed through the Balsam Gap in the mid-1880s because it represented the lowest opening in the range. 

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For that very same reason, the gap had been an early Indian and pioneer trail long before the coming of the rail line. It was the route utilized by General Griffith Rutherford and his men in 1776 for their punitive raid on the Cherokee and, subsequently, by settlers moving west down Scott’s Creek into the Tuckasegee River valley. 

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A tunnel had been planned and started through the Balsam Mountains to avoid the steep grade but was abandoned. On into the 20th century steam locomotives lacked the power to pull a full load of boxcars over the grade and had to haul them up to the Balsam station several units at a time. 

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According to J.D. McRorie’s account in The History of Jackson County (1987), a post office was established at Balsam in 1873 for about seven months, then in 1885 — with the coming of the rail line — it was re-established. Across the street from the new post office is one of the village’s main attractions. This is a huge white oak tree that appears to me to be well over 100-feet tall and more than four feet in diameter. As white oaks are known to live to be 800 years old, this particular specimen might well have been standing when Columbus discovered America. At any rate, it’s a wonderful specimen and well worth a look. Of added interest is the fact that one of the town’s citizens — Joseph Key Kenney — had it dedicated to George Washington in a public ceremony in 1932 on the 200th anniversary our first president’s birth. Naturally it’s called “The George Washington Tree.” 

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Balsam once boasted four general stores, several churches, an Episcopal school and a depot called on by passenger trains six times a day. Today just a handful of buildings remain, including the old railroad hotel recently resurrected as the Balsam Mountain Inn. 

With three stories, expansive wings, numerous rooms, and 100-foot double porches, all crowned with a mansard roof of embossed tin, the rambling Balsam Mountain Inn — built between 1906 and 1908 — represented the ideal of mountain tourism back at the turn of the century and on into recent times as well. The establishment was originally known as the Balsam Mountain Springs Hotel, named for the seven springs on the property. Guests filled their water bottles from a fountain in the lobby. 

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Passengers — often entire families — arrived via the rail line to spend the summer in “The Land of the Sky” so as to escape the heat of lower elevations and the dangers of malaria. They were met at the depot and driven up the hill to the inn in a horse-drawn surrey with a fringe on top. Dances, horseback rides, and guided excursions into the mountains were but part of the activities provided guests. They were catered to in an expansive dining room and made to feel at home in sitting areas outfitted with fine furnishings. 

***source:  George Ellison, Smoky Mountain News.  https://www.smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/14411-balsam-was-once-bustling-railroad-community