Copyright notice

This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 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.

Printer-friendly page

Title page from The Land of the Sky: A Pictureque Country on the Southern Railway, pamphlet issued by the Southern RailwayLand of the Sky

by Wiley J. Williams, 2006

"Land of the Sky" is a slogan applied to the Mountain region of western North Carolina. It was adopted from the title of a novel, "The Land of the Sky"; or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways (1876), written by Frances Christine Fisher Tiernan (1846-1920), a native of Salisbury, under the pen name Christian Reid. The story describes the activities of summer travelers who enjoy the scenery of North Carolina's mountainous west while engaging in mild flirtations.

Additional Resources:

Passenger Department of the Southern Railway. "The Land of the Sky: A Pictureque Country on the Southern Railway." Southern Railway. 1904. https://archive.org/stream/landofskypicture00sout#page/n7/mode/2up.

Barker, T.M., Jr. A Souvenir Directory to The Land of the Sky. Asheville, N.C. 1898. https://archive.org/stream/souvenirdirector00bark#page/n5/mode/2up.

Presbrey, Frank. The Land of the Sky and Beyond. Southern Railway. 1895. https://archive.org/stream/landofskybeyond00inpres#page/n3/mode/2up.

Smith, Mae Lucile. Sky-Land magazine. Hendersonville, N.C. 1913. https://archive.org/stream/skyland1913smit#page/n5/mode/2up

Image Credits:

Passenger Department of the Southern Railway. Title page of "The Land of the Sky: A Pictureque Country on the Southern Railway." Southern Railway. 1904. https://archive.org/stream/landofskypicture00sout#page/n7/mode/2up.

Subjects: 
Literature
Slogans, slang, and sayings
UNC Press
Authors: 
Williams, Wiley J.
Origin - location: 
Mountains
From: 
Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press.

1 January 2006 | Williams, Wiley J.

Add a comment

PLEASE NOTE: NCpedia provides the comments feature as a way for viewers to engage with the resources. Comments are not published until reviewed by NCpedia editors at the State Library of NC, and the editors reserve the right to not publish any comment submitted that is considered inappropriate for this resource. NCpedia will not publish personal contact information in comments, questions, or responses. If you would like a reply by email, note that some email servers, such as public school accounts, are blocked from accepting messages from outside email servers or domains. If you prefer not to leave an email address, check back at your NCpedia comment for a reply. Please allow one business day for replies from NCpedia. Complete guidelines are available at https://ncpedia.org/about.