Flashback to the 70s

Another quick photo post… Browsing through our archives, I found this picture labeled “August 1971.” It shows the Sunday morning flag raising ceremony, the girls gathered on the hill dressed in their uniforms, and the amazing view of the mountains we have at the center of camp. The Sunday uniforms are slightly different nowadays. Campers today wear white shorts, shirt and a red tie, but not red knee socks!

Is that an Oldsmobile in the background?

Evening Program Writing

We found this great old photo in the Rockbrook archives the other day. It’s not exactly clear when it was taken, but we’re guessing that it was sometime in the 1950s. It looks like the girls are all writing for the camp yearbook, “The Carrier Pigeon” during an evening program in the upper Lakeview Lodge. It’s when all the girls in an age group take time to jot down a favorite memory (sometimes as a poem or drawing) from their time at camp that summer. We later compile them all and publish the “Carrier Pigeon” each year.

From the photo, you might think it’s a sleepover, since the girls are in their pajamas, but that’s just life at an all girls camp. Nice and relaxed.

NC Camp from the Air

Our friend Carroll Parker dug this photo out of his files and emailed it to us the other day. Carroll grew up around Rockbrook because his father helped Mr. Carrier build the camp back in 1921. This aerial view of the camp shows western North Carolina and all it offered back then— the thick forests, streams, the “ever-bearing raspberries,” the French Broad River horseback riding ring, tennis courts, chicken coop, horse barn, gardens, and an apple orchard.

It’s fascinating to see what western North Carolina and Rockbrook Camp looked like back 1920s and 30s. Stay tuned, we’ll be posting more archival photos soon.

Exploring Rockbrook Camp's Past

Here are two more vintage postcards showing the historic character of camp. Like the others we’ve posted, the Albertype Company produced these postcards in the 1930s. The first is a view of Vesper Rock looking out across the camp lake, and in the background you can see the Lakeview Lodge. The second card is even cooler because it shows what the Carrier’s (Rockbrook’s original owners) waterwheel looked like. It was dismantled many years ago leaving only the stone foundation which you can just barely spot down in the woods below the lake.  Wouldn’t it be cool to rebuild it?  Maybe someday we will!

P.S. Want to see more historic photos of camp, including another view of the waterwheel?  Check out these.

Remembering Camp in the 1930s

Here’s something cool. Back in the early 1900s, the Albertype Company of Brooklyn, NY produced a number of postcards documenting scenes all around the country. Rockbrook Camp was apparently a favorite subject because we’ve found several cards from the 1930s highlighting scenes of camp. They are just excellent archival documents showing what camp was like in the early years.

Here we see a scene of the old horseback riding barn and paddling canoes on the French Broad River as it passes by camp.  Don’t you just love them?!