Dispatches From the Parks: Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site
On a crisp fall morning last month, I left from a hastily arranged hotel in Asheville (Gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains) and took a surprisingly quiet drive about 45 minutes long to Flat Rock, North Carolina. Flat Rock is the location of an underrated gem of the National Park Service, Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. I didn’t know much about Carl Sandburg before I arrived here. Doing some quick research beforehand I learned that he won a Pulitzer Prize for a biography he wrote on Abraham Lincoln, but actually being at this place allowed me to learn so much more about the man and the people that inhabited this place, which was called Connemara.
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site was established in 1968 by an act of Congress. It commemorates the lives of Carl and Lilian Sandburg. Carl was a famous poet and biographer, having won Pulitzer Prizes for both categories, and his wife, Lilian, was a world renowned goat farmer. Connemara (the name of the home) was where most of this goat farming took place. Connemara is named after the region of Ireland and was actually given the name by previous owners. That hints at an even deeper history beyond the Sandburgs that this site actually does go into. The original owner of the home was Christopher Memminger, who was the Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
Entering through the parking lot, you initially don’t expect much of Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. In fact, my first impression of the site was to be reminded of a recent visit to Charles Pinckney National Historic Site in South Carolina. Charles Pinckney NHS has a fantastic visitor center but the outdoor experiences at the park were vastly overstated by the park website. For instance, the viewpoint of one of the most popular trails at the park was literally right next to a highway. Unlike Charles Pinckney NHS, Carl Sandburg NHS is a much more expansive park than first looks would make you think. My visit was contained strictly to the outdoors as the house and visitor center were both closed (my visit was on a Wednesday in October). That being said, there was still a lot to do.
The highlight of my visit was a hike on the Memminger Loop Trail to Big Glassy Mountain. The trail is named after the previously mentioned Confederate Treasury Secretary, although you won’t find much information about him while walking upon it. The trail does go past the home and the farm (which is still an active goat farm in the summer months) as well as multiple wayside exhibits that give you more in depth details about the Sandburgs and Connemara. The trail is well maintained and seemed to be a favorite spot to get some physical activity in for locals so it is a good place to visit for people of all ages and physical fitness. When the trail isn’t on pavement it’s on gravel or well maintained dirt. If you choose to go all the way to Big Glassy Mountain you will get some elevation gain in. The mountain peak sits at 2782 feet in elevation and if you do the entire trail you will rack up about 600 feet in elevation gain. The view at the top is well worth it with a great view of the surrounding mountains and the whole trail felt like a great introduction to the Blue Ridge Mountain area as it was short and sweet. If you get tired on the way down, the trail does pass through the back of the home where an area called Sandburg’s Rock is located. It’s here that Sandburg did a lot of his writings. Also here are homemade wooden chairs where you can relax and enjoy the view.
All in all, I was quite surprised by Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. There’s such an expansiveness of outdoors in such a comparatively small area (the 250 acre size of the park pales in comparison to a lot of the nearby parks such as the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park). If you go on a day where the visitor center and home are closed you can get a lot out of your visit by just leaving two hours aside to enjoy the site.
