Tweetsie Country: The East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad

Tweetsie Country can be roughly defined as being bound on the north by the Great Depression, on the east by the state of North Carolina, on the west by Tennessee, and on the south by hope and determination.

The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad was born in this Blue Ridge Mountain country more than a century ago. In the 1880s it was called the "Stemwinder", and later, the "Eat Taters & Wear No Clothes". But it was the children (who rode the swaying cars to numerous summer camps) who christened it with the name that lasted: Tweetsie!

Here is all the color and charm of the Tweetsie, with its broad gauge aspirations on a narrow gauge budget. It is the story of a unique little railroad that travelled the Blue Ridge country and won the hearts of those who lived there.

This handsome pictorial history includes 250 outstanding photographs, plus maps, scale drawings, and three full-color paintings by Mike Pearsall and Casey Holtzinger.

Mallory Hope Ferrell is a native Virginian who roamed the hills of Tweetsie Country as a boy. A graduate of the University of Miami, the author now lives in Peachtree City, Georgia.