The following briefs are from the Thursday, Feb. 25, 1971, edition of The Transylvania Times.

Vernon McCall, whose small trailer home at Balsam Grove was destroyed and buried by the U.S. Forest Service Monday, Feb. 22, 1971, slept in a bed on the property Monday night in near freezing temperatures. The federal government had claimed land that he was on and moved in with heavy equipment to bury most all of his earthly belongs. Mr. McCall’s father, Cannon McCall, has a deed claiming ownership of the small one-acre parcel of land since Feb. 28, 1967, and has paid taxes on the land since t...