HISTORY of SWAIN COUNTY

History of Swain County

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In 1785, the Treaty of Hopewell opened the lands of Western North Carolina (WNC), including what is now Buncombe and Haywood Counties for settlement. Settlers continued to push westward, testing previous boundaries that had been in place, and by 1791, the Treaty of Holston allowed settlement in what would become Swain County. Contrary to the common belief that WNC was untouched wilderness, early land records from the Oconaluftee and Tuckasegee Rivers showed the remains of fields, homes, and other evidence that the Cherokee had inhabited the land for many, many years.

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After the Meigs Survey of Cherokee lands in 1802, settlers of Scotch-Irish, German, and English descent began to move into the Oconaluftee area and spread throughout the area. Early settlers included John Beck, Robert Cain, Jesse Cornwell, Hugh Davidson, James Davidson, Nathan Dehart, Thomas Dillard, Doris Felmet, John Hide, Benjamin Hide, Jacob Mingus, Robert Reed, George Sherrill, Samuel Sherrill, Jesse Smiley,  Jeremiah Stillwell, Robert Turner, William Welch, Sr., William Wiggins, and Michael Wikle.

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By the 1830s, settlement along the Tuckasegee and Little Tennessee Rivers continued to grow with more new families. In 1871, Swain County was officially established from parts of Macon and Jackson Counties, with Charleston, located on the site of a former Cherokee village known as Big Bear Springs, chosen as the county seat. Swain County began to grow with the first courthouse completed in 1872 and a second built in 1882. The railroad pushed westward from the East and reached Swain County in 1884, bringing a boom in economic development. In 1887, Charleston was incorporated and, in 1889, renamed Bryson City in honor of Colonel Thaddeus Dillard Bryson. The early 1900s brought further development, with logging companies such as the W. R. Ritter Company, Norwood, and others  establishing operations in the region. The second courthouse was rebuilt in 1907-1908 after a fire and now houses the Swain County Heritage Museum and the National Park Visitors Center. The movement to establish a National Park began in the 1920s and congress gave authorization for the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1926. The love of the GSMNP has grown over the years to become the most visited National Park in the US and in 2023 reported a record visitation of 13,297,648.  

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In 1927, a long awaited and promised road was built, Highway 288 through to Deal’s Gap, opening access to these mountains to the outside world. However, that advantage was short lived when in the 1940s,  Fontana Dam and Lake were built, burying Hwy 288 and  towns and villages, such as Almond, Bushnell, Dorsey, Judson, Japan, Marcus, Fairview, Proctor, Fairfax, Forney’s Creek, Hazel Creek, and Noland Creek, beneath the depths of its waters. Those who had inhabited the lands of their ancestors since the early 1800’s were forced to move from the area and received only small compensation for their lands. As further compensation, the Department of Interior, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Swain County and the State of NC  reached an agreement to exchange the 44,170 acres of Swain County that had been lost due to the lake to build a road along the North Shore of Fontana Lake thru the Great Smoky Mountain National Park to replace Hwy 288 so that those removed from the lands of their ancestors and others could return to visit the old homesites. Over the years there were many different routes and other options proposed to honor the agreement for the road resulting in years of controversy among all parties, including many people and organizations across the nation. During that time, abiding by different agreements,  a road was constructed in parts from  Bryson City into the National Park, ending about 8 miles west of Bryson City at the end of a tunnel now  known locally as the “Road to Nowhere” and identified by the National Park as Lakeshore Drive. In 2018, the entities involved reached a compensatory financial settlement with Swain County. But the Road to Nowhere remains an everlasting memorial to those Swain County people of tough, honest, hardworking Scotch-Irish, German, and English descent who made possible all that we have today. Swain County is now home to those descendants of the early pioneer families as well as newcomers who have found their way into these beautiful Great Smoky Mountains and now call Swain County home.