In the W Road’s earliest years, the distinctive “W” switchbacks didn’t exist.
There was only one switchback, according to Jim Douthat, owner of Mountain Press and a Walden’s Ridge historian who helped the town of Walden prepare an application to place the W Road on the National Register of Historic Places.
“The curve went from what is now the lowest curve of the W straight up. It was steep and very treacherous,” Mr. Douthat has said.
Logs were laid one behind the other across the steep sections to provide footing. The logs gave the road its nickname, “corduroy road.”
After the Civil War and Reconstruction, the toll franchise of Anderson Pike was bought out and the road opened permanently, according to Mr. Douthat’s history booklet, “Along the Pike.”
Another historian, Kay Baker Gaston, wrote that three mountain entrepreneurs, John Hartman, Tom Conner and Earl Hoodenpyle, offered wagon taxi services.
It wasn’t until the 1890s that the narrow, rock-lined switchbacks came into being and gave the road its distinctive name near the turn of the 20th century.
The Chattanooga Times of May 28, 1893, chronicled the spectacular beginning of the improvements that eventually would cost $11,000.
“Hanging Rock,” a chunk 45 feet long, 18.5 feet wide and 8 feet thick, had to be blasted out of the way, according to the paper.
Then an even bigger boulder – said to be the size of Point Lookout – had to be toppled.
People from all over the area came to watch, according to the account.
Altogether, there were six blasts of dynamite for Hanging Rock.
The newspaper report states that the last five blasts all came in quick succession, “which tore Hanging Rock from its long resting place, and it fell with a terrible crash 40 feet into the old Roger’s Gap Road, where it was broken in a million fragments.”
Continue reading by following these links to related stories: