Let's call these men honorary residents of Haywood County

Haywood County was never home to either Horace Kephart or George Masa. Their names are not written in the annals of our county, but both men left large footprints as they journeyed through our past.

Horace Kephart was a writer and George Masa a photographer. Each had come to the Western North Carolina mountains seeking a different kind of life. Their goals and needs were apparently satisfied as each chose to remain in this environment, Kephart in Bryson City and Masa in Asheville.

The mountains worked their magic and inspired in them an affinity for their surroundings that seems to have been, as with men and women involved in the founding of other parks, spiritual in nature.

Ultimately, they played important roles in the designation of the Great Smoky Mountains as a national park, Kephart with his writings and Masa with his photographs.

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