In the Blue Ridge Mountains during the 1920s and 1930s, economic activity mirrored that of rural Virginia and centered on subsistence farming, with many farms also having orchards of apples, peaches, pears, cherries, and damsons; green beans, fruit, and other vegetables were canned or dried for winter, milk cows supplied butter and cottage cheese, laying hens provided eggs and meat, and many families raised and butchered hogs while also consuming chicken and occasionally beef, lamb, or venison. Residents preserved food in many ways, using mountain springs for perishables such as milk, butter, cottage cheese, and leftovers, building cellars for potatoes, apples, and canned foods, sun-drying fruits and green snap beans, and burying cabbage in trenches or cellars to keep it fresh year-round, while meat houses stored cured meats. Many residents supplemented farm income through seasonal work on the mountain or in surrounding communities, and small-scale industries included saw mills, gristmills, a copper mine on Hightop, and a magnesium mine on Hanse Mountain, while skilled laborers worked as carpenters, stone masons, blacksmiths, and waggoneers hauling products to market centers or tanbark to tanneries. Some people made baskets, quilts, and crafts for sale, and Lam's Stave and Lumber Mill in the Swift Run area produced roof shingles, tool handles, barrel staves, and lumber products, using steam engines to power routers and crozier blades and using escaping steam to bend staves, with output sufficient for over 80 barrels per hour and employment for both mountain residents and valley men. Some mill workers boarded at Shipp's Tavern at the foot of the mountain at Swift Run Gap; built in 1832, it became known as the Mountain Hotel, was called Bridge's Tavern during the Civil War, and served as an important stage coach stop along the Spotswood Trail east of Swift Run, while Meadow's Store in the Swift Run area provided supplies, socializing, and news. Because mountain families were highly self-sufficient, they usually bought or traded only staples such as salt, kerosene, sugar, and coffee, along with goods such as shoes, clothes, fabric, tools, and school books, and today only a few remnants remain of the mills, mines, stores, and businesses of the people who once lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains.