Historic Saluda, NC

The Historic Saluda Committee (HSC) works to preserve the history and heritage of its people and places that helped make Saluda the enchanting town it is today. The HSC puts a strong emphasis on collecting oral histories of Saluda’s citizens and "summer folk." This page will showcase these oral histories, vintage photographs, provide information about the biennial Historic Tour of Homes and is an ongoing source of information about Saluda’s fascinating past.

The HSC was formed by a group of concerned citizens who wished to preserve the historical integrity of the town. In June 2010 the Saluda City Commissioners voted to make the committee an advisory committee to the city and seven committee members were appointed. The Historic Saluda Committee held its first official meeting on July 9, 2010, the day before Coon Dog Day.

Current appointed members are:
Billy Shand
Corinne Gerwe
Richard Mason
Charlene Pace
Cindy Stephenson Tuttle
Ammie Weymer
Jeremy Williams

At-Large Members:
Martin Anderson
Betsy Burdett
Anita Moore
Pam Fusco
David O'Brien

Representatives of the City: Carolyn Ashburn

The HSC conducts open meetings, which are held the second Friday of every month at 2:00 p.m. unless otherwise notified. Check this page for any changes. Meetings are generally held at the Saluda Public Library. The public is invited and encouraged to attend.

History of Saluda: Long before the railroad cut through the steep gorge along the Pacolet River to what is now Saluda, North Carolina, there was Pace’s Gap or Pace's Ridge. Located on Saluda Mountain, Pace’s Gap was a crossroads for traders who carried goods and drove livestock along the path where the old Howard Gap wagon road to the Blockhouse Fort met the Winding Stairs Road down to the low country of South Carolina and Georgia. Pace’s Gap was home to a drover’s inn run by the Pace family, which provided accommodations for weary travelers and provided pens and fenced areas to secure their livestock for the night.

The very first settlers in Henderson County set up homesteading in the Mountain Page community. In 1777, by treaty, the Cherokee Indians moved from the extreme southeastern portion of Henderson County, known as the Mountain Page area, leaving this land vacant for settlement. This was prior to the 1785 treaty, which cleared the way for land settlement in the remaining portions of Henderson County. In 1805 Burrell Pope Pace received a land grant of 300 acres, which included the Old Mountain Meeting House in the Mountain Page community, later known as Pace's Gap.

The Pace family came to Jamestown in 1607 on the ship the Marmaduke and received a large land grant in Virginia from King James. Some of his descendants moved across Virginia and down through the mountain passes into what is now Spartanburg, SC. Burrell Pope Pace married Lydia Woodruff in the village named for her family in South Carolina. He is buried in the old Mountain Page Cemetery in the oldest known grave in the cemetery with 1816 as his date of death. His son, Moses Pace owned and operated the Pace House once located on the old drover's trail on Howard's Gap, which was later run by his son, Ransom Woodruff Pace.

Records indicate the Thompsons were in the area by the early 1800s. John Thompson, one of the seven brothers who came from Ireland to settle in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia and later in the Carolinas, moved to Lynn, NC, in the early 1800s. One of his sons, Frank Thompson, built a house at the foot of Warrior Mountain, and another son, Ashbury (Berry) Thompson built a house in the forks of the road where Holbert Cove Road splits from Howard Gap Road. This house was used as a stagecoach stop between Spartanburg and Asheville and also served as a trading post and election center and the Tryon Post Office from 1839 until the railroad came up through Pace’s Gap in 1878.

Though the old saying goes, "if you pass a Pace on one side of the street in Saluda, you are bound to pass a Thompson on the other side," early records indicate that families with the surnames of Hipp, Williams, Forrest, Morgan, Middleton, Metcalf, Holbert, Laughter, Johnson, Staton, Guice, Gordon and Morris were early settlers in the area, too. In addition to Burwell Pope Pace, some of the earliest residents of Saluda included Benjamin Staton, William Metcalf and Samuel Gordon. The latter three are buried in the Metcalf graveyard in the Fork Creek community. Some historians believe Benjamin Staton to be the first white man to live in present day Henderson County. Many of the original families were Scotch-Irish who left Pennsylvania around the time of the Whiskey Rebellion in the early 1790s.

When the first passenger train of the Asheville and Spartanburg Railroad chugged up the Saluda Grade on July 4, 1878, Pace's Gap was forever changed. By February, 1881, the growth and prosperity of Pace's Gap had escalated to the point that it was chartered as the town of Saluda, named for Saluda Mountain, which is actually not a mountain but a group of mountains with the Saluda River at its feet It is said that the Saluda River was named for an Indian chief whose name means "corn river" in Cherokee, which sounded to white men like "Saluda."

Spread over seven hills, Saluda has an elevation of between 2,096 to 2,200. Considered an enchanted destination, it is rich with history, arts and entertainment, fine dining and plenty to see and do. Saluda, located primarily in Polk and partially in Henderson Counties, celebrated its 130th anniversary in 2011 and has a population of just over 700 people.