The idea than an entire community once existed that close to Mayodan fascinated me.
However, it seemed as if there was not much to be known about Avalon.
For several years, I accepted the simple story as it was told.
In the latter months of 2000, we were trying to find some information on a old
farm house that used to stand where we currently live. We still haven't found
anything on the house. Somehow along the way, our research led us to a little
information on Avalon that we had not heard before. We forgot all about the
old house for a while and began looking around for more information on Avalon.
We hit the jackpot at the Mayodan Library. Two books have been written
about Avalon, and the library has both. The first book we got was
Avalon: a brief history of a fateful town, written by Vera Dillon
in 1974. This book has photos and a brief history of Avalon. The 2nd book is
a must see for anyone interested in Avalon. The book is called
Avalon : a North Carolina town of joy and tragedy written
by Ola Maie Foushee, who lived in Avalon as a child.
The book, dated 1977 is now out of print. We have looked for the book in hopes
to obtain our own copy without any luck. The Library copy is getting in bad shape.
They keep the book in the reference section and cannot be checked out.
The book has an unreal amount of information and tons of photos.
In addition to these books, bits and pieces of information have
been found in Mayodan History, Rockingham County History
and a few other places. Most of the information in these sources was based upon the
memories of former Avalon residents, therefore there are discrepancies among the
sources concerning some dates and a few other details. In some discrepancies
it was easy to figure which was right, others could go either way.
After collecting lots of notes on Avalon we went out and explored
the Avalon site a few times. From our notes we drew a map to assist in figuring out where
the places in Avalon used to be. Exploring the site was both fun and exciting. With every
trip we found something new. We carried both a digital and 35mm camera and took a
bunch of photographs of the area. Many of the photographs we used to compare
the land layout with the old photos to further pin point locations.
We decided to combine our notes and photographs into this web page
dedicated to Avalon. We hope that people who are interested in Avalon can gain something
from this site and perhaps help create new interest in the town.
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