Jack Wadham has been running Waynesville Supply for more than 20 years, the last 12 of those in the Frog Level area. He has watched the business district between Depot and Commerce streets evolve, and as he leans out over his store counter pointing out different aspects of the community, he is optimistic that recent efforts to reinvigorate Frog Level will succeed.

“All of the activity down here is really encouraging,” said Wadham, surrounded by hardware supplies and some of the signs that his company sells.

“I’m really encouraged that the town is going to curb and gutter by the train tracks,” he said, nodding toward the railroad tracks across the the street.

That lot between the tracks and Commerce Street is where Carol James and other organizers of the Frog Level Association want to put in a rebuilt train depot. The depot was the focal point of what once was a thriving business district in the area. But when passenger rail service to Waynesville was discontinued decades ago, and with the resurgence of Main Street, Frog Level lost its luster. Windows are boarded up and storefronts suffer from neglect. The giant frog sitting on a carpenter’s level, painted on the side of Wadham’s building, greets many residents as they wait out the traffic light that doesn’t seem to adequately move cars and trucks through the community that straddles both sides of Richland Creek.
Frog Level’s future, however, is looking brighter, thanks mainly to the efforts of James and about 10 other property owners.

An assessment of the area’s historic buildings is set to begin this summer, and James hopes it may lead to a designation as a historic district. That would provide tax breaks for property owners, perhaps encouraging them to renovate the buildings. A book about Frog Level’s historic significance to Waynesville is in the works. Carolyn Clayton is completely renovating the interior of one Depot Street building - one of the most prominent buildings in the community - and hopes to have an antique mall and restaurant open by summer. James has already renovated and opened Mill Race Mercantile, and Five Talents Publishing and Graphic Design has opened for business beside Wadham’s Waynesville Supply.

Jim Pierce, who owns Pierce Pottery with his wife and son, has bought and is renovating another of the old buildings, one he says was a feed store for years.

The massive warehouse is located between Giles Chemicals and the Open Door Soup Kitchen, and by April the company’s 10 employees will be producing pottery to ship throughout the country and to Canada. Once the wholesale operation is up and running, Pierce hopes to open a retail store and eventually a studio space to rent to other crafters.

“When all is said and done, we hope to have the outside of the building looking like it did 100 years ago,” Pierce said. For now, he will hold off on renovating the building’s exterior until the historic assessment of the district is complete.

Waynesville police and graduate students are also at work in Frog Level. The students, under the direction of a police sergeant, have been going door to door to survey business owners and residents. The project is a requirement in the master’s level criminal justice curriculum at Western Carolina University, but Waynesville Police Chief Bill Hollingsed hopes it will increase community pride in the area.

“We are asking citizens about their concerns and about conditions around Frog Level,” Hollingsed said. “We don’t live there, so we might assume we know what they are concerned about, but this will give us a lot of information.”

If the survey turns up policing problems, Hollingsed will work to take care of those. If the concerns are not ones law enforcement can address, he will turn them over to other town employees.

“We will get them in touch with the town staff that can address them,” he said.

The survey results and formal plan to address the concerns of citizens should be finished by the end of April, Hollingsed said.

Frog Level’s checkered past
Both Wadham and Pierce said that loitering by customers of the Open Door Soup Kitchen is a problem for Frog Level merchants.

“There is a certain percentage of people who just won’t stop in here because of the Open Door,” Wadham said.

The Open Door is a soup kitchen operated by a consortium of churches and volunteers. For several years now it has served meals to anyone in need. Some charge that the presence of the soup kitchen has attracted undesirables to the area, many who sleep in back of the buildings along Richland Creek. Drinking is also a problem, they say.

Wadham’s business is not dependent on walk-in business, but he said controlling the people who hang out in the area must occur before Frog Level will be able to attract the kind of people who visit and shop on Main Street.

Pierce acknowledged that the soup kitchen’s mission is a good one, but he also agreed that the problem of people hanging out in the area needs attention.

“Something needs to be done, but I’m not sure how to address it. The only negative comments I’ve heard from renters down here is about people hanging out on the streets,” Pierce said.

Hollingsed, however, points out that the problems with people hanging out in Frog Level did not start with the soup kitchen. The area’s history, rich with stories of train passengers disembarking to visit the town’s healing spas, is also one of popular bars and an old dance hall. It has long had the reputation as one of Waynesville’s wilder areas.

Just last year that reputation was given national attention thanks to “The Jerry Springer” show. The show’s producers received a letter from an elderly Canton woman who said she had always wanted to be a prostitute. The show’s producers hired other women to dress as prostitutes, hired men to drive by and solicit, filmed the entire episode and aired it on national television.

That episode aside, the concerns of people like Wadham and Pierce are backed up by police records. Waynesville police pulled together statistics from the Frog Level area from January through September 2000: 125 calls and 42 arrests, a relatively significant number for such a small area, said Hollingsed. The great majority of the arrests were for trespassing and drunk and disorderly conduct, and there was one for prostitution. Hollingsed said there was one woman who was soliciting for customers, but she has since been arrested and imprisoned on another charge.

But Hollingsed said increased foot patrols behind buildings and the work of property owners has curtailed a great majority of the problems in Frog Level.

“There is a lot less of a problem down there right now,” he said. “I can’t tell you the last time we caught someone sleeping there, but I know it's been at least two months ago.”

“As more businesses get established and more people are coming around, it will displace these people. They will move to a different area because they want places where they aren’t going to be bothered,” Hollingsed said.

Will the railroad come?
James, generally considered the catalyst for most that has occurred in the area, is confident that eventually all the problems in the Frog Level area can be worked out.

“There is so much potential,” she said of why she and her husband made the investment in Mill Race Mercantile over the fall and winter. “I thought that if Frog Level would develop, we could really do a lot of business here.”

One of the group’s most ambitious goals is to rebuild the depot and use it to distribute tourist information and perhaps as a meeting place for community groups. Eventually, James hopes the depot could be served by the Great Smoky Mountain Railway, a passenger train now based in Dillsboro.

“I understand the original depot plans still exist. I feel like there is a good possibility that we could get some grant money. We are determined to bring the depot back, and perhaps even a bandstand of some type,” she said.

Association members have not contacted the Great Smoky Mountain Railway about their plans. They are putting a plan together now, and James said they wanted to prepare something more formal before taking it to the company.

“We would love to have the train come here, but our plans for Frog Level won’t be made or broken by the train. Other parts of this are more important now,” James said.

Great Smoky Mountain Railway officials are interested in bringing passenger service to Waynesville, but whether that will happen or not is dependent on Norfolk Southern. The Virginia-based company owns the 47 miles of track between Asheville and Sylva.

“We are monitoring the situation, but we are not actively pursuing it now,” said Jon Schlegel, the general manager of the passenger rail service.

“Norfolk Southern still owns the line. There are rumors out there that they are looking to sell or abandon a number of their shorter lines, but right now those are just rumors. We have not been in contact with them,” Schlegel said.

Susan Bland, the public relations manager for Norfolk Southern, confirmed that the company is going through a “pretty significant comprehensive strategic restructuring to try and get in line with a vastly different economy.”

Part of that process is looking at underutilized or unused track lines, Bland said. Nothing specific is going on right now with the Asheville to Sylva line, Bland said. However, within two years the company has announced it will sell, lease or abandon up to 4,000 miles of rail line. The company currently has 21,800 miles of route lines and 31,000 miles total, including sidings, yards, and other maintenance lines.

“One of the company’s goals is to identify all underutilized and unused track,” she said.

The Great Smoky Mountain Railway currently operates passenger and freight service on the Sylva to Murphy line. In addition to possible excursion train business, protecting the rail link from Asheville to Sylva for its freight service is also important to the company, according to Schlegel.

Tourism and new business
James believes the future of Frog Level is in attracting travelers who come into town now and spend their time and money on Main Street. She even envisions trolleys running up and down Depot Street to shuttle people from Main Street.

“People have to remember that tourism is the number one industry, the most stable industry we have,” James said.

The association is planning a clean-up and landscaping day for May 5. James said the Frog Level Association will also explore the idea of becoming a municipal service district or joining the one already existing in downtown Waynesville, a move that would provide funds for some of the projects.

“It’s just so upbeat now,” James said. “We are looking into grants, trying to get the history of the area together; individuals are working on storefronts. There is just a tremendous amount of excitement.”

Town Manager Lee Galloway echoes that sentiment. He says alderman have pledged to spend money in other parts of Waynesville, and Frog Level is going to get some of that. Money has been set aside for landscaping, curbing and guttering. The town has also pledged to pick up the tab for the historical assessment of the buildings.

“There is so much potential down there. We just hope all this stuff comes together,” Galloway said.

 

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