An often-told legend of the founding of Highlands states that Samuel Kelsey and C.C. Hutchinson took a map of the United States and drew two lines connecting great trade centers. The first line connected Chicago and Savannah. The second connected New York and New Orleans. Where these two trade routes crossed, they argued, would one day be a population center worthy of their investment.
Though the veracity of the legend is doubtful, the Highlands Plateau is, in fact, very near where the imagined lines cross.
As savvy businessmen, it is hard to envision that the two would use such a whimsical approach to make a life altering decision. It is much more likely that the two entrepreneurs were looking for a climate that would suit their agricultural and health needs and in the writings of Silas McDowell, they were alerted to the fact that Highlands was just the place.
As McDowell later wrote, “For thirty years I have been trying to call attention to these Highlands. I have described these bold surroundings as having no peer in the Southern States . . . I have piped and piped, but could get no one to dance, until now! But now, and for all time after this, the Sugartown Highlands will be as a ‘city on a hill,’ and no longer hidden from the world.”
[Source: Randolph P. Shaffner, Heart of the Blue Ridge: Highlands, North Carolina, 2001]