Murray Mountain, North Carolina

Whitts’ BP Station at the top of Murray Mountain on US 23 North, Murray Mountain, NC, 2002. Photo courtesy of Rob Amberg.

Dale Fluty on the highway: "We would agree that we most definitely needed the highway. We've watched families, people killed over there on Murray Mountain. Accident after accident. And the whole community in fear that one of these days it was going to be a school bus with our children. So we agree 100% that something needed to be done. All those tractor-trailers on that mountain is just not safe. So we're the first to agree that it needed to be built. Generally speaking, I think, it will be better as far as commuting for traffic, but the pollution, the noise, the noise is something that is never gonna change. We're never going to have peace and quiet again. There's times I like to go out and pray before daylight, and I go out and it's pitch black, there's no sound and no light, and that's gone. Many times I've been praying, and just thinking, this is just for a time and it's going to be gone. And now it is because the Welcome Center is right over here and it's lit up and is never going to change. The quiet is gone and it's never going to change."