Boone sits at 3,333 feet - the highest elevation of any city over 10,000 people in the Eastern United States. The town was chartered in 1872 and named for the frontiersman who hunted these mountains in the 1760s. The 2020 census recorded 19,092 residents, but the figure swells when Appalachian State University is in session. The town serves as the county seat of Watauga County and the cultural anchor of the High Country. Five buildings here are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Blair Farm, the Daniel Boone Hotel, the Jones House, the John Smith Miller House, and the US Post Office. King Street runs through downtown as both Main Street and a stretch of U.S. Route 421.

Doc Watson - the Grammy-winning bluegrass guitarist whose flatpicking style influenced everyone from Tony Rice to Brad Paisley - was a Boone-area native, and a sculpture of him stands in downtown. Michael Houser, founding member and lead guitarist of Widespread Panic, was born in Boone. Eric Church grew up here. Old Crow Medicine Show formed here. The Blue Rags came out of the same scene. Boone has produced more nationally-recognized roots musicians per capita than almost any small American town - a fact that makes sense once you sit on the porch of the Jones House on a summer evening and listen to the open jams that still happen on weekends across the downtown.

The official mascot of downtown Boone is a salamander. The hellbender - a giant, slimy, two-foot aquatic creature that survives only in cold mountain streams - has become the cultural symbol of the city. In 2024, the Boone Town Council and the Center for Biological Diversity installed a large mural of the hellbender downtown to raise awareness of its threatened status. The town passed a resolution supporting its listing under the Endangered Species Act. Meanwhile, the creek that runs through downtown - officially Boone Creek - is nicknamed Kraut Creek. A sauerkraut plant once operated here, and locals say the creek smelled of fermenting cabbage juice for years after the plant closed.

Horn in the West unfolds in the Daniel Boone Amphitheater outside town each summer. The Tweetsie Railroad, the East's first historical theme park, runs a vintage steam locomotive through the woods south of town. Grandfather Mountain rises ten miles south, with its mile-high swinging bridge. Howard Knob looms above downtown. The Blue Ridge Parkway threads past the eastern edge. On the athletic side, the Appalachian State Mountaineers - based in town - won three straight FCS national football championships in 2005, 2006, and 2007. App State is the only college team in North Carolina, public or private, to win an NCAA national football championship. The Boone Bigfoots play summer collegiate baseball at Beaver Field. Appalachian FC plays in the National Premier Soccer League.

For a small mountain town, Boone supports an unusual amount of local journalism. The Watauga Democrat publishes Wednesdays and Sundays. The Mountain Times runs free weekly entertainment coverage. The High Country Press publishes daily online. App State's student newspaper The Appalachian adds to the chorus. Local radio includes nine stations - news talk, country, classic hits, college radio at WASU 90.5, and NPR via WNCW 92.9 and the WFDD translator. The town government - a mayor-council structure chartered in 1872 - balances growth pressure against the constraints of mountain geography. The 2009 Boone 2030 Land Use Plan continues to guide decisions about what gets built and where, even as US 421 was widened to handle the traffic.