 Although Ritter brought jobs and cash to the inhabitants of Hazel Creek, the company's destructive logging practices led to long-term environmental damage to the forest and creek itself.Socialist writer Grace Lumpkin (1892–1980) lived at Hazel Creek for a brief time in the early 1920s.The Hazel Creek community would become the inspiration for the fictitious community of Swain's Crossing in Lumpkin's 1932 novel, "To Make My Bread".