16" x 20" • Oil

A great spur of sandstone called Blowing Rock, situated near the Blue Ridge Parkway, has been forming for thousands of years by the strong up drafts from the Johns River Gorge. The northwest wind, rising up from the cliffs three thousand feet below, is so forceful that the gale will return light objects tossed from the rock's summit.

An Indian legend tells of a Cherokee brave who jumped from the rock when torn between his love of a Chickasaw maiden and duty to his plains tribe. The Great Spirit returned the young lover to the grief-stricken maiden waiting on the rock by a gust of wind that now blows perpetually from the valley below.

Visitors began coming to Blowing Rock in 1875 to witness the majestic view and enjoy the cool winds of the mountains. A local man took in summer boarders that migrated to the area seeking relief from the low country heat and its accompanying swarms of disease-bearing mosquitoes. By the turn of the century, a small village had grown and eventually became a busy resort named after the legendary rock.