It wasn’t until 1809 that the first white settlements started appearing in what is now as the Swain County region, a land the Cherokee had possessed for several hundred years. Over two hundred years had passed since De Soto’s expedition when two naturalists William Bartram and Andre’ Michaux and his son bravely ventured into the deep mountains on separate expeditions in order to investigate the plants and animals of the southwestern Blue Ridge Province. To the earliest colonial settlers, the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains were nearly impenetrable, yet brave and adventurous souls wandered deep into the mountain’s interior, mostly as hunters and fur traders. In the mid-1500s Hernando De Soto’s quest for gold brought his Spanish army to the Blue Ridge Mountains, no significant amounts of gold were found and no settlements were ever established. Amongst tall mountains and deep forests are tales never to be forgotten and a remote town with aspiration of becoming a city.

This rugged and once obscure country is the symbol of endurance and survival. Below the central southeastern face of the Great Smoky Mountains in Western North Carolina is a county steeped in beauty and early American history.

The road to nowhere bryson city nc