Qualla: Appalachia

Appalachia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lewis Hine, Public domain. The word came north before the people did. When a 16th-century Spanish expedition under Hernando de Soto pushed through what is now the Florida panhandle in 1539, they encountered a Native nation called the Apalachee. The mountain range to the north - hundreds of miles away from Apalachee territory, in country the Spanish would not properly explore for another century - somehow inherited the name. By the time European maps were settling down in the 1700s, the long backbone of mountains running from Alabama to Canada was called the Appalachians. The cultural region that grew up in their hollows borrowed the same name. The Apalachee themselves were largely destroyed by disease and warfare within a few generations. The mountains kept their name forever.

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Image: Lewis Hine | Public domain

Appalachia: What Counts as Appalachia

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dubyavee, CC BY-SA 4.0. The geographic Appalachians stretch from Labrador in Canada to Alabama. The cultural Appalachia is smaller, centered on the southern mountains from Georgia to West Virginia. The federal Appalachian Regional Commission, created in 1965 to address chronic poverty, defines a 13-stat...

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Image: Dubyavee | CC BY-SA 4.0

Appalachia: The Cities

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AppalachianCentrist, CC BY-SA 4.0. Outsiders often picture Appalachia as a region of small mountain hollows, but the metropolitan map tells a different story. Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Youngstown, and Scranton are entirely within the ARC region. Atlanta and Cincinnati are partly within it. As...

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Image: AppalachianCentrist | CC BY-SA 4.0

Appalachia: The Stereotype Problem

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lewis Hine, Public domain. Appalachians have spent more than a century being depicted by outsiders as toothless, ignorant, racist, drug-addled hillbillies. The stereotype was profitable for journalists in the late 19th century, and it remained profitable for filmmakers and television producers throughout t...

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Image: Lewis Hine | Public domain

Appalachia: The Trail and the Park

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit George Caleb Bingham, Public domain. The Appalachian Trail runs 2,197.9 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine. It crosses 14 states and follows the spine of the southern Appalachians for much of its length. About 3,000 people attempt to thru-hike the full trail each year; roughly 25 percent...

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Image: George Caleb Bingham | Public domain

Appalachia: Mountaineers Always Free

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0. West Virginia's state motto is Montani Semper Liberi - Mountaineers Are Always Free. The phrase, adopted in 1872, captures something the region's own residents have often said about themselves: that the mountains breed an independent temperament that does not trust outside author...

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Image: Joe Ravi | CC BY-SA 3.0