Qualla: Mitchell County, North Carolina

Mitchell County, North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jdshepard at en.wikipedia, Public domain. In 1857, the geology professor Elisha Mitchell climbed a peak in the Black Mountains for the last time. He was, by then, 63 years old and engaged in a bitter scientific dispute with one of his former students, the Congressman Thomas Lanier Clingman, about which peak was the tallest east of the Mississippi. Mitchell had measured the mountain repeatedly over the decades; Clingman insisted his own peak was higher. Mitchell went to verify his measurements one more time. He never came back. They found his body at the base of a waterfall. The mountain proved his measurement correct, and the state of North Carolina named the peak, and eventually a county, in his honor.

Image: Jdshepard at en.wikipedia | Public domain

Mitchell County, North Carolina: The Mineral City of the World

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jdshepard at en.wikipedia, Public domain. Spruce Pine sits in the middle of one of the most geologically rich pieces of ground in the world. The Spruce Pine pegmatite district has been mined since the late nineteenth century for mica, feldspar, and quartz, and the quartz here is so pure and so abundant that virtually eve...

Image: Jdshepard at en.wikipedia | Public domain

Mitchell County, North Carolina: Penland and the Crafts

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jdshepard at en.wikipedia, CC0. In 1923, Lucy Morgan began organizing Appalachian women in the small community of Penland into a weaving cooperative, giving them a way to sell their craft and earn cash income. By 1929, outside students were joining local women for intensive sessions, and Penland School of Craft...

Image: Jdshepard at en.wikipedia | CC0

Mitchell County, North Carolina: 1923 and the Sundown County

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jdshepard at en.wikipedia, CC0. From about 1899 onward, Mitchell County operated a sundown policy that effectively prevented Black Americans from living or working within its boundaries. The policy lapsed in the early 1920s as the new state highway system, including what is now US 19E, brought Black convict lab...

Image: Jdshepard at en.wikipedia | CC0

Mitchell County, North Carolina: The Roan and the Rhododendron

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mason Brock (Masebrock), Public domain. Bakersville, the county seat, calls itself the Gateway to Roan Mountain, and the title is earned. Roan Mountain itself straddles the Mitchell-Tennessee line, a high grassy bald running for miles along the ridgeline at over 6,000 feet, the longest stretch of grassy bald in the ent...

Image: Mason Brock (Masebrock) | Public domain