November/Our State

By Ralph Grizzle

During the summer, it's a nice drive up State Road 1310 from downtown Franklin to Wayah Bald. From Wayah Bald's observation tower, set amid flaming azaleas and flowering laurels, Macon County looks a lot like other North Carolina counties, rural and green. But driving back down State Road 1310 tells another story about this beautiful land.

Winding along Wayah Creek, you begin to notice homes built along the banks. These are not the typical homes you would expect to find in this part of Appalachia. Many are newly built, retreats nestled in the green forests. What is surprising is the abundance of these homes in this seemingly remote patch of forest.

It's even more surprising, says Mike Decker, director of planning and development for Macon County, when the leaves fall from the trees. "That's when you see how many homes there really are," he says. But even with the leaves obscuring the view it's clear that this land, once the domain of the Cherokee, is rapidly changing.

The North Carolina mountains, as well as the state's coast, long have been drawing cards for attracting retirees and second-home owners. But until recent years, those who came to the mountains stayed only seasonally, returning home when the last leaves left trees bare.

Now many of those who come to Western North Carolina are settling in, becoming year-round residents of the small mountain towns that they find so charming. Bruce Sloan, manager of Mountain Fresh Fine Food, a supermarket at the end of Main Street in Highlands, says he remembers a time when people came, stayed the season, then headed back home for the winter. "Now they're buying a pair of longjohns and a four-wheel drive and staying year-round," he says. "They'd rather put up with the weather than the crime and hustle and bustle of the big city."

Between 1990 and 1998, net migration, a term that state demographers and statisticians use to measure the number of people moving into a region, will account for 21.2 percent of Macon County's population growth. That's almost two and half times the state average: 8.7 percent for the same period.

Those figures make Macon County the fastest growing region--populationwise, at least--in Western North Carolina, according to the State Office of Planning in Raleigh. Statewide, Macon is the seventh fastest growing county--Brunswick, Pender, Johnston, Wake, Currituck and Union are the state leaders, respectively.

The influx of new residents is transforming the economic landscape of Macon County, and for the most part, in a good way. New housing starts are up, for example, and demand for real estate continues to outpace supply, making it a seller's market. "What's going on here is just insane," says a Highlands realtor who asked to remain anonymous. "We have people wanting to buy properties but there's nothing available. As soon as something comes on the market, it's gone. It's frustrating to have 18 people on a waiting list and nothing to show them."

And these aren't cheap properties, either. Last year, one home in the Highlands area sold for $3 million and another for $2.5 million. Who's buying? Fortune 500 CEOs, to be sure. But more and more the newcomers are refugees fleeing the battle lines, coming to the western end of our state to find respite from the big cities down South.

Kristy Kelly was one of those refugees. She left Orlando years ago and now serves as executive director of the Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. "We have what Disney World copied," she says, only partly in jest, of Highlands, a town of about 3,000. "Disney makes a lot of money marketing Main Street U.S.A., which is what we are. What attracts people here is that we are small-town America. People are hungry for that."

Stick around long enough, and you'll hear the story of the Delta Air Lines' pilot who moved here from Atlanta and commutes weekly to Hartsfield International Airport, a little more than two hours' south, leaving his wife and children behind in a community that he feels good about.

What he and others are attracted to might best be seen firsthand at Mountain Fresh Fine Food. Drive by after closing hours, and you'll see that the produce remains outside, something that you're not likely to see in the big cities, or for that matter, in most small towns.

Sure, there's some theft, but the store's manager says he is able to rely on the integrity of the town's citizens for the most part. "Some mornings, I'll come in and find 50 cents or a couple of dollars that people have left for a peach or a bag of apples," he says. "Once someone took a brown paper bag, stuck five dollars in it and slid it under the door with a note, 'Got two cantaloupes. Here's five dollars.' They almost always overpay."

The mix of newcomers from cities South with the descendants of settlers who have occupied these regions of Western North Carolina for generations has created an interesting change in the local economy. "What we have is an economy and community where the dynamics are changing," says the county's Decker. "People who are coming here are not necessarily looking for jobs. They're looking for quality of life issues. On the other hand, the people who have lived here for a while are looking for jobs. So we're challenged to meet the needs of people moving in, but we also have to address the needs of people who have lived here a long time."

As might be expected, the service and retail sectors have been experiencing robust growth, but manufacturing jobs, which county officials say they need to maintain a balanced economy, are being lost. As elsewhere, many of those jobs are going out of the country. In the past two years, Macon County has lost two big manufacturers that employed more than a quarter of the county's manufacturing workforce .

And attracting new industry hasn't been easy. "Industrial recruitment is an uphill struggle in Western North Carolina," says Mark West, who heads up the county's Economic Development Commission. "There's not a lot of flat land here that hasn't been developed. Plus, there's no rail service in the county. I don't want to give up on industrial growth--it's where we need to focus our attention in order to have a balanced economy--but it is a battle."

The absence of natural gas, a key to wooing certain industries, also has hurt the county's chances for attracting new industry. State Department of Commerce surveys show that one-third of companies interested in locating in North Carolina won't consider counties without natural gas. But by the time this article appears, Macon County should have the clean-burning fuel, piped in by a municipal gas provider in Toccoa, Georgia. "And while that won't guarantee success in attracting new industry," West says, "at least it won't take us out of the running."

Of course, even if Macon County fails to attract new industry, the loss of manufacturing jobs is being offset by the steady addition of new retail and service jobs. With unemployment at 2.3 percent, anyone who wants work in Macon County can find it, says Ed Guy, local manager for the Employment Security Commission.

What does the future hold for Macon County? As with most things, it's difficult to predict, but it seems that more and more people are eager to leave cities like Atlanta. They'll come looking, no doubt, in Western North Carolina.

At the same time, Atlanta's urban sprawl is fast encroaching on Macon County. The new Mall of Georgia at Mill Creek, the Southeast's largest shopping center, is only 90 minutes south of Franklin. "Atlanta," says the county's Mike Decker, "is getting closer and closer." One implication of this may be that more commuters may be willing to drive to their jobs in the northern reaches of Atlanta from regions like Macon County.

But there will be limits as to how many newcomers Macon County can absorb. Back toward Wayah Bald, on the west side of Franklin, is the office of the Wayah Ranger District. Its charge is to help administer the 152,606 acres of national forest land in Macon County.

The existence of Nantahala National Forest allays fears of overdevelopment, even as record numbers of people continue to move in to Macon County. Local residents take some comfort in knowing that building on the federal lands is not allowed. And perhaps therein is Macon County's greatest paradox: the region's natural beauty, which attracted so many, ultimately will be what turns others away.

Before the Georgians, the South Carolinians, the Floridians, and even before the early pioneers and the Scots-Irish settlers, Macon County was a major center for commercial activity. In fact, 7.,000 years before the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built, Native Americans roamed Western North Carolina.

Those Native Americans occupied the lands along the Little Tennessee River, which runs through Franklin and Macon County. The region was heaviest occupied during the 13th through 16th centuries, says Dave Moore, an archaeologist at the Western Office of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History in Asheville. Eventually, a town formed, called "Nikwasi Mound" by the Cherokee. The town became a center of trade for Native Americans as far away as the Gulf of Mexico.

But trade in Macon County predates even Nikwasi Mound. In 1995, archaeologists excavated a site at an industrial park west of Franklin. Their finds convinced them that Mica was being gathered there and traded with Native Americans in the Ohio River Valley, who used it to make ritual objects.

This all happened somewhere between the 5th and 8th centuries, Moore says. To put that in perspective, turn to your history book. It will tell you that this was about the time when German invaders were conquering the western Roman Empire. Sort of redefines your view of ancient history in the state, doesn't it?