For decades, Caldwell County has been known as the Furniture Center of the South. However, the history of Caldwell goes beyond the miles of furniture retailers and successful manufacturers, back to a time when Caldwell, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, was on the frontier of America. The story of Caldwell County includes pioneer forts perched on the edge of a vast wilderness; Confederate soldiers struggling in America's most famous battle, Gettysburg; logging companies and growing railroads; the remarkable furniture industry that has employed generations of residents; and the world-renowned Lenoir High School Band. The images within this book-of explorers and settlers, homes and schools, church functions and family gatherings, the famous and ordinary, and the beautiful and industrious-help tell the story of Caldwell County, her people, and her place within the history and culture of North Carolina and the United States.

This well-known history of Watauga County, North Carolina, is considered one of the best ever written. From Watauga County's 'Yankee Ancestry' to its role in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, nothing is overlooked.

The 125-year history of Appalachian State University rests on the ambitious yet selfless dream of empowering impoverished mountain families through education. Dauphin Disco Dougherty, his wife Lillie Shull Dougherty, and his bachelor brother, Blanford Barnard Dougherty, founded a small semi-private high school in 1899 at great personal cost and would only be able to sustain its growth to a state teacher's college through their fortitude of character and commitment. Drawing extensively on primary sources, some of which have appeared in no previous book, this history presents the first 30 years of the university's life and background. With over 100 historic images and dozens of first-hand accounts and interviews, the text uncovers forgotten foundations and fascinating personal details of the school's founders, bringing the first 30 years of App State to life.

This is the story of Collett Leventhorpe (1815-1889), an Englishman and former captain in the 14th Regiment of Foot. Leventhorpe came to North Carolina about 1843, settled there, and later served the Confederacy as a colonel in the 34th and 11th N.C. and brigadier general commanding the Home Guard in eastern North Carolina. Though he trained as a physician at the College of Charleston in the late 1840s, he never practiced and was a restless man, endlessly in search of fortune--before the war in the gold fields of North Carolina and Georgia, and after it in the pursuit of lost estates, art treasures and inventions. But he excelled first and foremost as a Confederate soldier. As a field commander he was never defeated in battle, and his record was marred only by his own rejection of a much deserved but very late promotion to CSA brigadier. He lies buried in the beautiful Happy Valley section of Caldwell County.