Qualla: Cherokee County, South Carolina

Cherokee County, South Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Morder (talk), Public domain. Three units of the National Park Service inside one county - Cowpens National Battlefield, part of Kings Mountain National Military Park, and the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail running through both. Cherokee County, South Carolina, is the only county in the country that can make that claim, and the reason is concentrated in a single month. Between October 7, 1780, when the Overmountain Men destroyed Patrick Ferguson's command at Kings Mountain, and January 17, 1781, when Daniel Morgan trapped Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens, the Revolution in the South pivoted on ground that is now mostly cattle pasture and Interstate 85 traffic.

Image: Morder (talk) | Public domain

Cherokee County, South Carolina: The Trading Path and the Settlers

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Morder (talk), Public domain. The land was Cherokee land for centuries before European contact. When traders pushed inland in the mid-1700s, they followed the existing network of Native American paths collectively called the Trading Path - the Upper Road running south from Fredericksburg, Virginia, into the P...

Image: Morder (talk) | Public domain

Cherokee County, South Carolina: Cowpens, January 17, 1781

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Morder (talk), Public domain. Daniel Morgan was a Virginia frontiersman who had fought in the French and Indian War and the invasion of Canada, and who understood militia better than almost any Continental officer. At Cowpens, he placed his militia in two lines forward of his Continental regulars, with explic...

Image: Morder (talk) | Public domain

Cherokee County, South Carolina: Gaffney and the Peach

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Morder (talk), Public domain. Gaffney, the county seat, is best known to drivers on I-85 for the Peachoid - a 135-foot water tower painted to look like a peach, complete with a green leaf. Visible for miles, it asserts that South Carolina, not Georgia, leads the Southeast in peach production - and it does. Th...

Image: Morder (talk) | Public domain

Cherokee County, South Carolina: Three Mountains and Two Rivers

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Morder (talk), Public domain. Geography is modest by Blue Ridge standards. Four small peaks rise from the Piedmont floor: Draytonville Mountain (locally called McKown's, after a farmer who owned much of it), Brown's Mountain, Thicketty Mountain and Whitaker Mountain. The Broad River cuts the eastern edge of t...

Image: Morder (talk) | Public domain