And in 1910. . .

The Highland Lake Club--"an exclusive colony in the mountains conducted on the co-operative plan"--was planned but never completed. The plat below shows the lots that would have been available for sale and a planned road at lake's edge that was never built (although parts of it still exist on county records). The large building was the club house, which was built and used for a few years until it burned (approximately where Highland Lake Inn is now) [correction: the club house was north of where Highland Lake Inn is now]. I have always heard that a real estate bust at the time ended the development idea.

From the Highland Lake Club booklet for the 1911 season:

Nowhere east of the Rockies can a more commanding porch view be had than from the spacious verandas of the Club. Ordinarily, such views are only possible as the result of long drives. But in our own location we have a source of continual joy. One can sit and enjoy by the hour the grandeur of Pinnacle Mountain as seen over Highland Lake, or else, to the North, the Bear Wallow Range, in the centre of a beautiful picture framed by Sugar Loaf and Pisgah Mountains. The reader should know that Sugar Loaf is eighteen miles from the Club, and Pisgah is forty, although both are easily seen.

1910 survey of Highland Lake Club lots