Day Four: Spring Creek, N.C.

Getting to Spring Creek takes a certain dedication, but once you start there's no going back. There are few places to turn around driving on the twisting road whittled from the mountain. The only option is to continue up and onward, until, finally you break from the mountains and reach a long, flat stretch of valley.

The people of Spring Creek – about 1,500 families – know they have a barely noticed treasure that has escaped the condo developers and hotel chains. They are fiercely protective of the land and what it means to live in Spring Creek.

Even the township’s rudimentary Web site gives a clear warning: “If you have come to our community to develop large tracts of land for multimillion dollar homes on small lots, pollute our streams and springs, and take what we have and give back nothing, you have come to the wrong place.”

Spring Creek's Internet Drain

Lady Cerelli, who moved to Spring Creek four years ago, says there’s something healing about the mountains that encircle the town she’s found unusually accepting. “That’s what’s so beautiful about this community,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what your religion is; nobody falls alone. Everybody comes together to pick you up.”

But Spring Creek is struggling. The area is so remote, many people must commute over the mountains for work, and some who leave for jobs don’t come back. Economic conditions are tough, and high-speed Internet is, save for a few pricey satellite connections, non-existent; the township is lucky enough to get dial-up.

In an effort to revitalize the area, residents have embarked on a massive undertaking to renovate the old school building into a community center with a restaurant called "Grits," a library, a computer lab, a gym, a convenience store, and space for small businesses. The center, only partially complete, is a gathering place, a space to talk about the past and imagine the future.

Lady knows that the future -- and the vitality of the local economy -- is dependent on getting high-speed Internet.

“We don’t have malls; we don’t have industry,” she says. “The purpose of the [community] center is to entice other business to come here. We have rooms to rent for businesses. Access to broadband would be a big plus for someone who would want to move in.”

Flipping the Switch

Layten Davis, 71, was born in Spring Creek, and remembers running up and down the halls of the school. “See those squares on the floor,” he says, pointing to spots on the wooden floor in the restaurant. “That was the principal's desk.”

Layten likens the need for the government to invest in broadband infrastructure to the rural electrification projects of the 1930s. While nearly all urban residents in the country had electricity, few rural residents did. And private utility companies gave the same excuse that telephone and cable companies give today: It’s too expensive to build service to rural and remote areas. The Roosevelt administration stepped in where private industry bowed out, helping to finally light up the homes, schools, hospitals and streets of rural America.

Layten says Spring Creek was one of the last places to get electricity. It was 1948; he was 10 years old.

“I remember what an exciting day it was when we were able to turn the lights on in the house that we had wired a year-and-a-half earlier,” he says. “All the technology was there. We could turn the switches on and nothing would happen. It’s pretty much the same thing now knowing that the technology exists but we can’t turn the switch on to get the [broadband] turned on.”

Getting It Done

In a booth next to Layten and Veda, his wife of 49 years, two strangers realize they’re cousins. “The second question anyone asks around here is, ‘What’s your mother’s maiden name?’ ” Layten says. Several teenage boys tramp through the tiny store in search of an after-school snack. The restaurant owner’s son sweeps the lint of snow off the front porch.

But without a broadband connection, it's hard to imagine the next generation wanting to stay in this close-knit community.

“I would encourage [the Obama administration] to move as quickly as possible to get us the basics that we need here for high-speed Internet,” Layten says. “I would tell [Obama], ‘Let’s get this done yesterday if we can, because every day that is delayed is one more day lost.’”

Veda, mostly quiet and nodding as Layten talks, punctuates his final point: “We need it. Now.”