Visiting Our Past: Is WNC a coherent cultural area?

Rob Neufeld | Columnist

Editor's note: Rob Neufeld is on vacation. This column first appeared in 2008.

Years ago, I found a book that redrew the map of our country as if the states had been defined by geography and culture rather than politics. I haven't been able to re-find the volume, yet the notion continues to fascinate me.

Is Western North Carolina truly an entity? And if the region were to be subdivided ecologically, what would be the configurations and their names?

The issue is old and controversial, as well as modern and personal. First, the old and controversial.

When the United States was formed, no one state was made to include a majority of mountain people — though it might have made more sense to put East Tennessee and Western North Carolina within a single boundary.

In 1783, settlers along the Watauga River felt the government of North Carolina, which had extended to the Mississippi River, was not paying attention to their needs — including defense. When the General Assembly ceded its western lands to the U.S. Congress, Wataugans went ahead with plans to form their own state. They continued with their plans after North Carolina took the land back and made a lot of promises.

Thus the State of Franklin was born. It lasted five years, before folding into North Carolina, which had been operating its own government in the same region. Ultimately, mountain men continued to bemoan poor representation.

East Tennessee and Western North Carolina share a major river, the French Broad, as Wilma Dykeman pointed out in her geographical chronicle, "The French Broad." They also share a lifestyle and place in history.

After the Overmountain Men clinched decisive battles of the Revolutionary War (at Cowpens and Kings Mountain) with their long rifles and woodsman's techniques, they streamed in from the Greeneville, Tennessee, Boone and Marion areas. The Buncombe Turnpike united Tennessee and North Carolina in the middle decades of the 1800s, forming commercial relationships.

But the two states have also been divided in major ways: by different migration routes; by opposing Civil War loyalties and roles; and by the Great Smoky Mountains. So, we might say that WNC is an entity, which brings us to the modern and personal.

The sub-regions of WNC

A previous column — a response to a reader's question about Beaver Lake in North Asheville — determined that Baird's Bottom was not dug and filled but only dammed at the time that the Lake View subdivision was built in 1924. In fact, it appears that the lake bed was dug, but not for the lake.

Julia Nowlin, a Reynolds family member, writes that her ancestors dug the area for clay to build a mansion on what is now Reynolds Mountain. Before Lake View Park and Merrimon Avenue, North Asheville was marshy country, except for the settlements along the creeks running down from Elk Mountain.

Lake View Park changed the ecology and culture of North Asheville, as the Reynolds Mountain development is doing now. Consequently, in designating 14 sub-regions of Western North Carolina — based on geography — I acknowledge modern as well as ancient signifiers.

One of the sub-regions I call "Asheville-Hendersonville," an urban eco-region.

I call the area that includes Murphy and Andrews "Konnaheeta," the Cherokee name for Valley River Valley. In his 1837 book, "A Canoe Trip up the Minnay Sotor," George Featherstone called the area "the Paradise of the Cherokees."

"The North Carolina Atlas" by Douglas Orr Jr. and Alfred Stuart was very helpful in enabling me to overlay rock, soil, temperature, precipitation, forest, river and settlement patterns.

The other 12 areas I've designated are: Hiwassee, Smoky Mountains, Gemstone, Little Tennessee, Tuckaseegee, Nantahala, Spruce Pine, Blue Ridge, Morganton, Foothills, Rich Mountain and New River.

The lines and the names may change with further thought, but the scheme helps provide a geographical grasp of the region. What would you say is the 1,200 square mile eco-region in which you live?

Rob Neufeld writes the weekly “Visiting Our Past” column for the Citizen-Times. He is the author of books on history and literature and manages the WNC book and heritage website The Read on WNC. Follow him on Twitter @WNC_chronicler; email him at RNeufeld@charter. He will return June 5 with part two of his column on WNC ghost stories.