Some place names included in The North Carolina Gazetteer contain terms that are considered offensive.
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.
"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 |
|---|---|
| Owen's Creek |
rises in NE Alamance County and flows SW into Jordan Creek. |
| Owenby Branch |
rises in central Macon County and flows NE into Little Tennessee River. |
| Owenby Cove |
central Buncombe County between Little Cedar Mountain and Gashes Creek. |
| Owens |
community in central Cumberland County. |
| Owens Branch |
rises in S Clay County and flows NW into Shooting Creek. |
| Owens Cove |
S Buncombe County N of Face Rock. |
| Owens Creek |
rises in W Warren County and flows SW into Fishing Creek. Appears on the MacRae map, 1833. |
| Owens Gap |
on the Jackson-Transylvania county line N of the head of West Fork French Broad River. Alt. 3,590. |
| Owens Knob |
S Wilkes County at the NE end of Gill Mountain. Alt. 1,350. The W. Kerr Scott Dam on Yadkin River is nearby. Named for one Owen, who lived there in 1752 when Moravian surveyors arrived. |
| Owens Point |
extends from E Onslow County into White Oak River. Probably named for either Thomas Owens or Benjamin Owens, two early settlers there. |
