Jackson

It’s located beside Dills Cove Road Road in Sylva, right where the road goes under the US 74 bypass.

I’ve read many articles and blogs about this waterfall, all of them saying basically the same thing: Dills Falls was a waterfall within the corporate limits of Sylva (the only waterfall inside a city limits 

) that was 249 feet high and was lost during construction of the US 74 bypass, which opened in 1974.

I have to admit, not much makes me more excited than sleuthing waterfall stuff like this and I’ve had a blast with this one. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s get started.

View roadside

Best bet is to make a quick glance from the road.

If you’re a waterfall sleuth like me, climb down the bank and see what you can figure out. Please let me know what you come up with.

I don’t know the date for this photo. The pickup truck suggests it was taken in the 1950s or early 1970s. If you’re having a difficult time seeing how this is the same waterfall that’s in the postcards, you’re not alone. (085A-01)

A copy of this photo appeared in a 2006 article in 

 (I don’t remember where I got this copy.) Hotaling gave 1955 for the date. If you’re having a difficult time seeing how this is the same waterfall that’s in the postcards, you’re not alone. (085A-02)

The Pack Library record for this photo doesn’t provide the photographer’s name or date. It does say that this is a photo print glued to mat board with the title card stating, “Pub. By Asheville Post Card Co. for Sylva Rod & Gun Club, Sylva, NC.” I’m pretty sure that this is not the photo that was used for the postcards on this page. (085A-04)

I don’t know the date for this old postcard. (085A-03)

I don’t know the date for this old postcard published by Asheville Postcard Co. It’s obviously a differently colored version of postcard 085-03. (085A-05)

The waterfall is located within the city limits of Sylva, where the US 23/74 bypass crosses Dills Cove Road.

Get Your Bearings

Dills Falls is named for Jonah Dills, an early developer in the Sylva area. An earlier name is Bumgarner Falls, named for a local family who had a feud with the Dills family. When the Bumgarners moved away, the Dills name became attached to the falls and cove.

 The waterfall is also known as Dills Cove Falls.

Naming

I have no idea where the 249 feet figure comes from, or another reference I’ve seen calling it over 100 feet high. No clue. I mean, if it was 250 feet I could attribute it to a guess from someone who is incredibly measurably challenged, but 249 feet? Sure, you might guess something to be 9 feet high, or even 19 feet high, but beyond that you’re going with round numbers.

Suffice it to say the waterfall was nowhere near 249 feet high. I’d guess 39 feet max. (See what I did there?)

Measuring

Whether or not Dills Falls once existed at this location is not in question. What I’m trying to figure out is exactly where the waterfall was in relation to what is there now. And I’m having a difficult time seeing how the waterfall that is on the postcards is the same one that is in the historical photos. But other than how they look, I’ve uncovered nothing that makes me question the validity of these postcards.

When the highway was built, engineers probably didn’t want the creek to flow under the bridge for fear of damage from flooding. And they probably didn’t want to design road supports around the creek, either. So, they installed a long, huge pipe for the creek to flow through, covered it with dirt, and built the road on top.

If the waterfall existed downstream from the pipe, I don’t understand why it was necessary to fill it in, so I wonder if the falls was close to being under the new road corridor. But a couple of the historical photos make it look to me that the waterfall would have been downstream from the new road, not under it.

There is fair amount of fall downstream from the pipe with a bunch of concrete riprap strewn all over the place in the creek. One might assume that the waterfall did exist below the pipe and is simply covered by the riprap. I wondered about that, too, but after thorough investigation on three different trips, I question this because there isn’t enough rip rap to cover what appears to be bedrock. I just don’t see how a vertical-drop waterfall could have been at that point.

To make it even more confusing, the historical photos clearly indicate that the base of the waterfall is pretty much the end of the significant falling water, with the creek immediately downstream being mostly flat. This suggests that if what I observed is indeed bedrock, the waterfall could not have been upstream from the end of the pipe.

Based on all this, about the only thing I can come up with is that what appears as bedrock is not so. For that to be the case, the road crew would have dumped some major rock and covered a lot of it with dirt, then thrown some concrete slabs on top. I guess that’s possible, but that rock sure looks like bedrock and not tossed boulders.

I suppose another possibility is that where the pipe empties is not the original creekbed. Perhaps the waterfall was a little bit to the west. But this would only explain why I can’t fathom the waterfall being at the point where the pipe empties. If the waterfall was on a different creek course, it introduces other puzzling factors, such as how the flat creekbed downstream from the waterfall squares with the falling creekbed downstream from the pipe. The only answer to that would seem to be that there was a massive amount of fill placed here, which not only completely covered the waterfall, but also created a new incline for the creekbed downstream. Besides the fact that this doesn’t make sense for dealing with such a small stream, I’m certain that there is bedrock not too far downstream from the pipe. There is no fill at that point.

Why does it matter where exactly the waterfall was located? Because I’m a waterfall sleuth! Can anybody out there shed some light?

Destruction

The only thing I can figure here is that someone made the claim about Dills Falls being the only waterfall within a city limits before there was a thing called Google and no one took the time to check afterward. Even as late as 2016, when I published the third edition of 

Not only is Dills Falls not the only waterfall in the country within a city limits, but it’s also not the only one in North Carolina. I haven’t done a specific search on this, but I would expect dozens of North Carolina waterfalls to be within a city limits and hundreds, if not thousands, in the entire country. One of the towns in North Carolina—Granite Falls—is actually named for the waterfall within its borders.

Accessibility:	Roadside view
County:	Jackson
River Basin:	Little Tennessee
Watercourse:	Roundbottom Creek
Watershed:	Very small
Type and Height:	Near vertical slide and freefall; no clue how high it was
Landowner:	State of North Carolina

Beauty Rating:	-1
Elevation:	2120 feet
USGS Map:	Sylva North
Hike Difficulty:	View roadside
Hike Distance:	View roadside
Waterfall GPS:	35.37974, -83.22863
Trailhead GPS:	35.379131, -87.228705

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