Mount Sterling is a mountain in the

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, located in the southeastern United States. It reaches an elevation of above sea level. The

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is topped by an abandoned fire tower that overlooks other nearby peaks.Smoky Mountain News
Mount Sterling crowns Mount Sterling Ridge, a ridge that gradually descends northward from the flanks of Big Cataloochee Mountain (on the Balsam Mountain crest) to the Pigeon River Valley. The ridge divides the Cataloochee area to the east from the Big Creek Valley (which represents the fringe of the Cosby area) to the west. The communities of Mount Sterling, North Carolina, and Waterville, North Carolina are located in the Pigeon Valley at the ridge's northern extreme. Geologically, Mount Sterling consists mainly of

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the ...

metamorphic sandstone of the Ocoee Supergroup, formed nearly a billion years ago from ancient ocean sediments. The summit of Mount Sterling is surrounded by a stand of

Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

History

According to early residents in the Mount Sterling area, the mountain was named after a wide streak of

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

in the bed of the Pigeon River at the mountain's northern base. These early residents mistakenly thought the lead was silver. The Big Creek campground, at the northern base of Mount Sterling Ridge, occupies what was once the community of Mount Sterling, North Carolina.

Mount Sterling, North Carolina Fall Foliage 2

During the

U.S. Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states t ...

, Cataloochee and the remote valleys at the base of Mount Sterling became popular hideouts for deserters, and both

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and

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detachments consistently made raids into the area to find them. Raiders and

bushwhacker Bushwhacking was a form of guerrilla warfare common during the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, American Civil War and other conflicts in which there were large areas of contested land and few governmental resources to control these tra ...

s navigated through the area by following a trail that connected Cosby and Cataloochee via Mount Sterling. One local legend relates an incident in which Confederate Captain Albert Teague swept through Cataloochee and arrested three alleged Union sympathizers. Teague marched them up to Mount Sterling where he ordered one of the detainees, a well-known local fiddle player named Henry Grooms, to play a tune on his fiddle. Grooms chose the somber "Bonaparte's Retreat." When he finished, Teague executed all three detainees. Around 1903, the Cataloochee Lumber Company established the village of Crestmont at the northwest base of Mount Sterling to house a labor force needed to log the Big Creek Valley and operate a timber mill. Crestmont thrived until 1907, when the company commenced logging operations in the area. In the late 1920s, the Carolina Power and Light Company established the community of Waterville at the mountain's northern base, near the confluence of Big Creek and the Pigeon River. Waterville provided the labor force needed to operate the company's Walters Plant, which housed the powerhouse for the Waterville Lake reservoir further upstream. While vestiges of Waterville survived, Crestmont was absorbed into the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, whi ...

in the 1930s, and converted into what is now the Big Creek Campground. The balsam wooly adelgid infestation, which killed off most of the park's fraser firs, was first noticed in the Smokies atop Mount Sterling in 1963.Carson Brewer, ''Great Smoky Mountains National Park'' (Portland, Ore: Graphic Arts Center Publishing, 1993), 114.

Access

Mount Sterling, North Carolina Fall Foliage

A long gravel road connects the Big Creek ranger station (near Waterville) with the Cataloochee Campground. The trailhead for the Mount Sterling Trail is located near this road's halfway point at Mount Sterling Gap. The trail ascends to the summit. The Mount Sterling Ridge Trail traverses the ridge's crest between Laurel Gap on Balsam Mountain and the summit of Mount Sterling. The Baxter Creek Trail connects the summit to the Big Creek Campground to the north. These two trails both provide segments of the cross-country

Benton MacKaye Trail The Benton MacKaye Trail or BMT is a footpath nearly in length in the Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States and is blazed by a white diamond, 5″ across by 7″ tall. The hiking trail was created and is maintained by the Ben ...

. The Pretty Hollow Gap Trail connects Mount Sterling with Cataloochee to the east, and the Swallow Fork Trail connects the mountain with Walnut Bottom in the Big Creek Valley to the west.

References

External links

Mount Sterling
— Peakbagger.com * Mount Sterlin
fire tower

The Great Smoky Mountains Association
— Non-profit partner of the National Park, creator of all official park maps and guides, and operates all official park information and visitor centers {{DEFAULTSORT:Sterling, Mount Mountains of Great Smoky Mountains National Park Mountains of North Carolina Natural history of the Great Smoky Mountains Protected areas of Haywood County, North Carolina Mountains of Haywood County, North Carolina