Early Visitors and Settlers

Early Visitors and Settlers. . The earliest people to visit the High Country, as it is known today, can also be considered its first “tourists” because none chose to live here permanently. The Cherokee and Catawba tribes traveled the region hundreds of years ago in search of game in its prolific hunting grounds. Spanish explorers journeyed through the area in 1567 in the quest for gold and other riches. Bishop August Spangenberg camped near here in 1752 as he sought a suitable location for a Moravian settlement. He noted the extraordinary beauty but was quickly driven off our mountain by bitter and blustery winter weather. , The area's earliest permanent residents arrived in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including Blowing Rock's first family, Richard and Eleanor Greene, who put down roots here after the Revolutionary War. Other original settlers included families such as Coffey, Estes, Storie, Bolick, Hayes and Lentz, whose names may still be found on streets and local businesses. A number of their descendants still live here. , Because of the isolation and difficulty in traveling to the region, these initial inhabitants lived mostly by subsistence farming. The next station describes the efforts to improve the trek up the mountains.