Sam Parker:
We were infected with the pioneer mountain spirit at that point in time. I think that's the word – we were infected with it. Here we were working with people – the laborers who worked there at that point in time – the Abby Hunnicuts, the Ponders, Aaron Ponder, Clay Jenkins. These people had essentially seen frontier mountain-living in reality and had essentially grown out of that. So they knew. They still cooked on wood stoves. They still milked cows. They still did the things that essentially the pioneering folks of this county had done for centuries. Now, they were one step above it, maybe a half a step above it, but they infected us with that pioneer feeling. The old back to the earth feeling.

- Sam Parker, resident of Madison County since 1967

Interview with Sam Parker by Rob Amberg, December 5, 2000, Interview K-0252, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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