Brown Mountain Light -- Beer, that is

I found my Brown Mountain Light!

This Brown Mountain Light research never ends!  But I'll go to any length and leave no stone unturned in my efforts to seek out the facts.  So, yesterday, I made my way to the Olde Hickory Station in Hickory, NC---the site of the historic Hickory Tavern, where the first electric lights in Westen North Carolina were installed in 1888.  Soon thereafter, electricity spread to every city, town & community throughout the Catawba River valley and these were probably the first mystery lights seen & reported by the mountain residents in the early 1900s and which gave rise to the Legend of the Brown Mountain Lights.  And there's another connection to the Legend with this location---it sits immediately beside the raidroad tracks; yes, the very same first railroad in western NC that began operating in 1858.  It was this new & unexpected train that gave rise to the first authentic reports of mystery lights over the top of Brown Mountain---the Fate Wiseman story.  In fact, it was the lights from this early train that resulted in Wiseman's View on the western rim of Linville Gorge getting it's name---Fate Wiseman would sit there intently staring off into the distance waiting for glimpses of the mystery light (train headlight), so people began calling the spot Wiseman's View. 

 

Now for the good part---the beer is called 'Brown Mountain Light', brewed across the parking lot at the Olde Hickory Brewery!  I now have the 'proof' I've been lookin for!