Copyright Notice: This content is from the North Carolina Gazetteer, edited by William S. Powell and Michael Hill. Copyright © 2010 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.
This content is from the North Carolina Gazetteer, edited by William S. Powell and Michael Hill. Copyright © 2010 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.
Some place names included in The North Carolina Gazetteer contain terms that are considered offensive.
"The North Carolina Gazetteer is a geographical dictionary in which an attempt has been made to list all of the geographic features of the state in one alphabet. It is current, and it is historical as well. Many features and places that no longer exist are included; many towns and counties for which plans were made but which never materialized are also included. Some names appearing on old maps may have been imaginary, but many of them also appear in this gazetteer.
Each entry is located according to the county in which it is found. I have not felt obliged to keep entries uniform. The altitude of a place, the date of incorporation of a city or town, may appear in the beginning of one entry and at the end of another. Some entries may appear more complete than others. I have included whatever information I could find. If there is no comment on the origin or meaning of a name, it is because the information was not available. In some cases, however, resort to an unabridged dictionary may suggest the meaning of many names."
--From The North Carolina Gazetteer, 1st edition, preface by William S. Powell
| Place | Description |
|---|---|
| Mitchell County |
was formed in 1861 from Yancey, Watauga, Caldwell, Burke, and McDowell Counties. Located in the W section of the state, it is bounded by the state of Tennessee and by Avery, McDowell, and Yancey Counties. It was named for Elisha Mitchell (1793-1857), professor at the University of North Carolina who was killed while exploring the peak that now bears his name—the highest point E of the Mississippi. Area: 220 sq. mi. County seat: Bakersville, with an elevation of 2,550 ft. Townships are Bakersville, Bradshaw, Cane Creek, Fork Mountain, Grassy Creek, Harrell, Little Rock Creek, Poplar, Red Hill, and Snow Creek. Produces tobacco, Christmas trees, apples, corn, hay, dairy products, livestock, textiles, apparel, hosiery, lumber, mica, gypsum, feldspar, kaolin, and quartz. |
| Mitchell Cove |
W Haywood County on the head of Mitchell Cove Branch. |
| Mitchell Cove Branch |
rises in W Haywood County and flows SE into Jonathans Creek. |
| Mitchell Creek |
rises in SE Craven County and flows NE into Clubfoot Creek. |
| Mitchell Falls |
S Yancey County on Mitchell Creek. It was there that Elisha Mitchell fell to his death in June 1857. |
| Mitchell Lick |
on Cherokee-Graham county line approx. ½ mi. from the North Carolina-Tennessee state line on the headwaters of Snowbird Creek. It is a site at which early settlers salted stock and to which wild animals also came for salt. |
| Mitchell Mountain |
NE Henderson County. |
| Mitchell Ridge |
S Yancey County between Mitchell and Timber Creeks. |
| Mitchell River |
rises in SE Alleghany County and flows E into Surry County, where it enters Yadkin River. Appears on the Collet map, 1770. |
| Mitchell Swamp |
rises in W Robeson County and flows S into South Carolina. |
