Highlands Nature Center

Clark Howell Foreman

"...remembering his father's often quoted remark of Ben Franklin to the effect that you could accomplish a lot more if you didn't worry about the credit..."

- from the autobiography of Clark Howell Foreman

As you walk into the front door of the Highlands Biological Station’s (HBS) Nature Center, on the right you will see a plaque stating the “Clark Foreman Museum”.

Today, few know who Clark Foreman was or his tremendous contribution in establishing “the museum” or the Highlands Biological Station.

Clark Howell Foreman was born in 1902 and died in 1977. He was the son of Robert Langdon (R. L.) Foreman (1867-1940) and Effie Park Howell (1870-1943). The Howells were a prominent Atlanta family who had a lengthy involvement with the HBS. Clark’s namesake, his great uncle, was Clark Howell Sr. (1863-1936), owner and editorial executive of the Atlanta Constitution for 53 years.

On July 4, 1927, the Highlands Museum opened in a one room addition to the Highlands Library. “The Highlands Museum was started for the purpose of preserving and increasing some of the private collections made by first citizens in the region.” Open daily during July and August, the collections included the Cleaveland Cherokee artifacts, the Wheeler Herbarium and the J. Jay and Mary Chapin Smith Collection of minerals from North Carolina as well as a limited series of birds, insects, native woods and pioneer implements and crafts of North Carolina. The Museum was supposed to be housed in Library for 5 years, at which time the room would be given to the Library. But it was not until 1938 that a new building for the museum was proposed on East Main Street where it is located today.

The Highlands Museum of Natural History was incorporated on July 21, 1930. Twenty-five founders include names we still hear today: Ravenel, Harbison, Foreman, and Kelsey to mention a few. Clark Foreman was President.

Clark Foreman’s correspondence concerning the museum goes back to at least July of 1928 when he was visiting museums in North Carolina and the American Association of Museums in Washington, D. C. which he joined “in order to get help in forming the Highlands Museum.”  He also was seeing the Curator of Biology at the Smithsonian, then the National Museum.

Still in the Nature Center today, Mr. Foreman writes about the Hemlock slice. “Mr. Holmes in Raleigh told me the best way to get a tree to dry out without cracking was to cover both cut sides with wax and thus force the tree to dry through the bark. This takes a long time but he says it is worth doing. Tell this to Mr. W. M. Cleaveland so that he can do it for us when he cuts down the hemlock stump.” The Hemlock stump/slice has between 425 and 439 rings, was from a tree on the Highlands Estate, now the Highlands Country Club given by Scott Hudson and was officially accepted at a Museum Board Meeting on July 8,1929. Many years later Robert (Bob) Zahner counted the rings again and marked the historical events on the slice we see today.

In order to build the museum, the land on which the proposed new museum would stand was deeded to the Town of Highlands. The architects were Arthur Kelsey and Alfred Kastner of Kastner and Bella in Washington, D. C. They worked with Atlanta architect, Linton H. Young, a cousin of Clark Forman. The Town applied to the Works Progress Administration (WPA) for a grant to help with the construction of the new museum which funded – $13,509 for labor and equipment of the $20,940 building. The Museum was constructed from chestnut trees from the National Forest and stone from the town quarry across from Wilson Gas today.

Mr. Cleaveland of Highlands built the Museum which was completed in 1941 and also built the Samuel T. Weyman Laboratory Building completed in August of 1931.

The saga of building the Museum is revealed in Clark Foreman’s 182 letters between 1934 and 1941, revealing Foreman’s frustration with the WPA. Another story to be told.

Yet through Mr. Foreman’s perseverance, the Highlands Museum opened June 20, 1941. The Visitor’s Register for that day still resides in HBS Library Archives.

With many thanks to Clark Foreman, we remember the building the Highlands Museum.

Documents for this story are housed in the E. E. Reinke Archives of the Highlands Biological Station Library.

– Bryding Adams, Volunteer Archivist, January 2025