From the Asheville Citizen-Times:
It is a beautiful time of year on Grandfather Mountain, with the rhododendrons in full bloom and the approaching warmth of summer blending with the cool of higher altitudes to create near-perfect temperatures.
It was the type of relaxed, blissful climate Hugh Morton enjoyed for decades.
Amid that backdrop hundreds of mourners came Sunday night to Grandfather’s Nature Museum to pay their respects to Morton, the mountain’s owner and nurturer for the past 55 years.
Morton died of cancer at age 85 on Thursday, and friends and family mingled for two hours at his visitation remembering a kind, gentle man whose passions included a love of nature.
“He was the right man for the mountain,” said son Jim Morton. “He left a beautiful place for everybody to enjoy from now on.
From the Associated Press:
They came across the Linn Cove Viaduct that was born of Hugh Morton's greatest battle, up the side of a mountain he fought to preserve, to pay their respects Sunday to North Carolina's biggest booster. ...
In attendance Sunday was Morton's good friend, musician and longtime TV host Arthur Smith. It was Smith who joined Morton in 1962 at a statewide televised debate with the head of the National Park Service, which wanted to route the Blue Ridge Parkway over Grandfather Mountain.
Smith's declaration -- that it didn't seem right for Washington bureaucrats to take away the mountain Morton loved and was caring for -- helped carry the public relations battle. The park service ended up taking the parkway around the side of the mountain.
The Linn Cove Viaduct, built to accomplish the feat, has become North Carolina's most famous stretch of road, a staple of tourism posters and advertisements.
"He did so many things, from the [Wilmington] Azalea Festival to the battleship [USS North Carolina] to Singing on the Mountain," a gospel festival held annually on Grandfather Mountain, Smith said.
On the wall Sunday was one of Morton's most famous photographs -- a shot of the Charlotte skyline, nearly 85 miles distant, taken from atop Grandfather Mountain on an exceptionally clear day.
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