270 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
expenses by labor in some of the schools. Varied activities include 1
weaving, spinning, the manufacture of furniture, and the operation of _
a broom factory, a college laundry, a bakery, a store, a printing shop, a w
farm, and a hotel. ·
On the outskirts of Berea are (L) the C1;—1URcH1LL WEAvE1zs (loam .
house and display room 0pen to public). Since 1922, when it was
founded, this institution has grown to be one of the largest of its kind
in the country, operating more than 40 looms. After D. C. Churchill,
the founder, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ’
as an engineer, he spent some time in India, where he studied the art
of weaving. He designed a loom and took first prize for both speed .
and quality of cloth in an all-India competition. He came to Berea,
at the invitation of President Hutchins, to take the chair of physics and
motor mechanics. Three looms, including one he had designed for his ,
wife—-who soon displayed unusual ability in combining and blending
colors—and a hastily constructed loom-house were the first plant of
the present Churchill Weavers, now working in well-equipped, well-
lighted buildings. The looms are all of Churchill’s design and were
made in the plant shop. Many of the designs used follow the patterns
traditional among the Kentucky mountaineers.
Left from Berea on State 21, an improved road, to INDIAN FORT MOUN-
TAIN, 3 m., a prehistoric stronghold with more than 200 acres inside its defenses.
Seventeen stone walls and barricades defend the summit. Caves and rock houses
contain the graves of warriors who once held this mountain.
Left 0.5 m. from Indian Fort Mountain to BASIN MOUNTAIN, another pre-
historic fortincation on a smaller flat-topped knob. Two stone walls guard the
summit, which is 18 acres in extent. This mountain is named for the two basins
that were hollowed out on its crest to hold water for the defenders of the fort.
Both fortifications are in a strategic position near the Warriors Path (see Tour 4A),
which passed through Boone’s Gap, three miles south of the present site of Berea.
A marker (L), 45.1 m., commemorates Daniel Boone’s Trail (Boone’s
Trace) which was blazed from North Carolina into Kentucky in 1775
(see Tour 4A).
MOUNT VERNON, 59.6 m. (1,150 alt., 939 pop.), seat of Rock-
castle County, was incorporated in 1817 and is in the foothills of the
Cumberland Mountains, a region in which isolated knobs and ridge tops ·
rise to a height of 1,500 to 2,500 feet.
Immediately back of the courthouse is the old LANGFORD Housn
(open), built in 1790 as a blockhouse for defense against the Indians.
Although the front of the building has been weatherboarded, and win- ‘
dows have been cut where there were formerly only loopholes, the
interior is little changed. This house became a hotel in stagecoach
days, and later was a station on the Underground Railroad.
On court day, which is observed regularly in Mount Vernon, country-
folk from the surrounding region come in wagons and on horseback
to trade, talk, and drink a little.
Fox, coon, and ’possum hunting are favorite sports in this region
where most farmers own three or four hounds apiece. Each hunter