Blue Ridge Country - March/April 2019 - 14

OUR BLUE RIDGE TOWNS

WHERE Small BUSINESS
IS

SYLVA/
O,
DILLSBOR
H
NORT
CAROLINA

BIG Business

An hour southwest of Asheville, two adjoining North Carolina towns have
earned themselves a string of "firsts" and "onlys."
Text and photos by JOAN VANNORSDALL

A MUST-SEE: THE
GREEN ENERGY
PARK
What do you do when the EPA orders
closure of your unlined 13-acre landfill,
with 750,000 tons of trash buried and
decaying, producing copious amounts
of methane gas?
Executive Director Timm Muth, a
nuclear and electrical engineer committed to sustainable energy production,
set out to put it to use in the way that
Sylva and Dillsboro know well: to create
and sell art.
The Green Energy Park opened its
gates in 2005. Glassblowers and ceramic artists, blacksmiths and metalworkers
use methane piped from 10 landfill
wells to heat their kilns and forges to
over 2,500 degrees. Much of the work
is produced in the former trash transfer
station, from which they cleared 500
tons of waste.
Muth is rightfully proud of what
they've built. "It's a good injection of income into our local economy," he says.
"In addition to selling art, we do lots of
classes. Some of the artists who come
here for studio space stay in Jackson
County. We do school tours, and work
with art and engineering students from
WCU and SCC. It's hands-on learning
for them."
"It doesn't have to be dinosaur fuel
heating kilns and forges for artists,"
Muth says. "We want to show artists
they can get along without propane."
More information: jcgep.org.
-JV

14

BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

Dillsboro's Lights and Luminaries adds to its charm as a shopping paradise.

S

tanding on the hill outside the
Jackson County Library, you
can see the length of Sylva's
Main Street. It's a cold and
rainy Saturday morning, more
suited to sitting by a fire than
being out and about.
But traffic on Main Street is nonstop,
and most of the parking places are taken.
People have business here in this downtown-in stores that include a chocolate
shop, a river outfitter, restaurants and
coffee shops, a fresh fish market, several
breweries, antique and resale shops, a
baby store and a cocktail lounge.
And three bookstores. Someone's doing a lot of reading in Sylva, population
2,269.
The night before, I'd made three
loops around the large community
parking area of neighboring Dillsboro
(population 232) before finding a place

to park for the Lights and Luminaries
celebration, complete with horse-drawn
carriage and a couple dozen shops serving hot cider and selling crafts...as well
as a newly opened brewery in the old
train station and adjacent farm-to-table
restaurant.
As if thriving business districts
weren't enough, the Sylva/Dillsboro
area has laid claim to some notable accolades:
* The most photographed library in
North Carolina
* The first "live" museum dedicated
to the history of women in Southern
Appalachia
* The only fly fishing trail-complete
with waterproof map-in America
* The largest collection of American
Housecat memorabilia in one of only
two house cat museums in America
* The only blacksmith and metalcraft
http://www.jcgep.org http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Blue Ridge Country - March/April 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - March/April 2019
