Stan Hyatt:
The people that came initially to Madison wanted to grow their own wool or whatever, and grow their gardens. And they learned from the people here. Basically took on the values of the people here while retaining their own individual values. But if that is shifting and if people are looking at it as an economic thing just to buy and sell land, I think that will change the complexion or the nature of the county for the worse. I really hate to see that, myself. To me, the land is something to be preserved. As a road builder I hate to cut the land up. I realize the necessity of it, and that you have to state the priorities. But I'd hate to see a big farm – a family farm – where a fellow inherited one-hundred acres from his dad, and then he decides to sell that land, and then it's cut up into one acre tracts and so forth. I hate to see that, but it's a part of change. People in this free nation we live in have the right to do things like that, but I hope that I don't live long enough to see Madison change drastically. We have a small population of people in a big land area, and there's a lot of national forest area, and there's a lot of natural beauty to the area. I know that most of the people, either native or the people that have moved in – non-native people – want to maintain Madison. They don't want to make a Buncombe County out of it, or a Wake County or whatever. They want it to remain a rural isolated county, but at the same time they want industry. They want growth; they want convenience. So, all of that is in a mix right now, and I don't know how it's going to shake out.

- Stan Hyatt, Resident Engineer on the I-26 project and Madison County resident

Interview with Stan Hyatt by Rob Amberg, November 30, 2000, Interview K-0249, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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