February 16, 2016 ~ Vintage Treasure Finds at The Peaks of Otter

 This is an aerial view of The Peaks of Otter which is located in Bedford, Virginia taken from their site on the internet. The proper belongs to the National Forrest fur they lease out the lodge and dining room to a private company. We have gone up and stayed there a number of times because I love to walk around Lake Abbot and up to the Johnson Farm, and Bud treks up to Sharp Top Mt. I go up there via a school bus service. The last time we were there we did not stay in the main lodge but out to the left in the two story section. In the bathroom I got to witness a blast from the past....an original bottle opener on the back of the door and in the wall to the right of the sink was a slot where you would drop your used razor blades. I could not believe my eyes considering I had not seen one of the latter since I was a child. Hope the photos bring back some memories for those of you who are seniors.

BLOGGER has deleted my picture and will not let me put it back. There is just a yellow square.

Here is the information on the Peaks that I found in Wiki.  Buddy has hiked in to the area that I have highlighted in red. It is an interesting piece of WW!! history.

At milepost marker 86 of the Blue Ridge Parkway stands the Peaks of Otter. It’s known that Native Americans used the peaks often for travel and rest and European settlers started establishing the area in the mid-1700s. In 1766 Thomas Wood and his family from Pennsylvania settled a homestead on the area; National Park Service documents^[1] indicate other early residents included brothers Charles and Robert Ewing, who are asserted by some to have named the Peaks after the Ewing surname as it is pronounced in Scottish Gaelic - Clann Eóghain na h-Oitrich, or "Clan Ewing of Otter."^[2] This view may be given credence by similarly Otter-themed place names in Scotland, and the resemblance of Flat Top to Beinn Dorain in the ancestral Ewing area of Argyll and Bute.

In 1834 the first local inn was created by the children of the Wood family and opened to travelers. In the late 1800s the Peaks of Otter was home to over 20 families, a school, a church, and a hotel. By the early 1900s the Peaks of Otter became a popular local tourist spot and became especially noticed by the National Park Service. Abbott Lake, the lake at the base of the peaks, was man made and created in 1964 along with the official Peaks of Otter Lodge, which still stands today.^[3][4]

The Peaks and Surrounding Areas and Activities[edit]

There are three main peaks; Flat Top, Sharp Top, and Harkening Hill in order from highest peak altitude to lowest peak altitude. Aside from Sharp Top there is a separate cliff formation on the other side of the peak called Buzzard’s Roost, at about the same elevation as the rest of Sharp Top. Combined within the three peaks is a little over 12 miles of hiking and extra attractions along the way.^[5] On the outside of the valley, past the lodge, are the Peaks of Otter campgrounds, where there are trails, picnic tables, big open fields and outdoor grills. Johnson Farm is a historically restored site along one of the side trails towards Harkening Hill, it is a interactive, still functioning farm building from the early 1900s.^[6] From atop the peaks the very close town of Bedford can be seen within eyesight. The township of Bedford actually claims the Peaks of Otter within its jurisdiction, due to its proximity to the peaks. On the summit of the far side of the main peak; Sharp Top, there is a famed crash site of a World War II B-25 bomber that crashed into the side of the mountain during a training exercise. The wreckage was never removed, as it is too heavy and the side of the mountain it crashed on is too steep to work on. There is a small memorial on a rock at the top of the site for the crew that died, it is a hike off trail, but the majority of the plane can still be found along the mountain with bigger parts further down as you go over an estimated area of 500x600 feet.^[7][8] There is also a bigger, more put-together World War II Memorial in nearby Bedford. This memorial is a D-Day memorial dedicated to all men who died in the Normandy landings, but especially to the ones from Bedford, who had the highest percentage of men killed in the initial landings, the most out any other single area in the whole country.^[9]

This post is linked with Tom’s Tuesday’s Treasures.