A Tale from the Summit Road Construction

This is a story Irene O’Neill shared with me at senior lunch. Her father, Jack Barfoot came to the island roughly in 1932 and he and his family (Irene included) lived in the cabin you see today and Mountain Lake Landing. Jack’s first job was the road watchman for the summit road construction. As many of you know, about 1/4 of the way up top the summit, there is a bridge. According to the story, one of Jack’s first assignments was to make sure nobody crossed the bridge as the concrete was just poured and it had not cured properly for vehicle traffic. So, a car arrived at the bridge and Jack signaled for it to stop. The man in the car explained that he had “business” further up the road. Apparently Jack, armed with a rifle thought to be a 30-30, cocked it and exclaimed: “Not today you don’t!” The car left. It turned out that the driver was Robert Moran himself. He went to his home which was the Mansion and said to his employees: “That new watchman, he’s good, you keep him!”