Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina

Jul 18, 2016 Mon0

Laurie and I like riding our Gold Wing motorcycle. But it is easy to get into a rut and just ride the same roads. So to force ourselves to ride to places we would not normally visit we made a goal to visit and photograph all 100 North Carolina courthouses within 1 year.

As usual, we got a little behind. We started in July 2015 and finished 99 out of 100 by June 2018. The last courthouse was in our home county of Wake and it took us until Feb 2021 to get that final one. But we made it! This blog is about one of those visits.

Many NC courthouses were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The nomination form has some interesting facts about the various courthouse styles over the years.






Courthouse Information


Wikipedia says the following about the courthouse:

Yancey County Courthouse is a historic courthouse located at Burnsville, Yancey County, North Carolina. It was built in 1908, and is a two-story, Classical Revival style, stuccoed concrete block building faced in stucco. It has a central pedimented entrance pavilion surmounted by a blocky cupola. It features Corinthian order pilasters and polygonal corner projections. The building housed county offices until 1965, when a new courthouse was constructed.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.






County Information


The North Carolina History Project lists the following information for this county:

Established in 1833, the mountainous county of Yancey borders the state of Tennessee, and it was named in honor of Bartlett Yancey, a Congressman who served from 1813 to 1817. Congressman Yancey was involved in establishing a fund that led to the formation of North Carolina's public school system. Burnsville, the county's seat of government, was named in honor of the famous privateer, Otway Burns, who fought on the coast of North Carolina during the War of 1812. Although a native of Onslow County, Burns would later represent the western counties of the state and advocate for their equal representation in the North Carolina General Assembly. A statue of Burns stands in the middle of Burnsville's public square, engrained in the base of the statue is the commemoration: "He Guarded Well Our Seas, Let Our Mountains Honor Him."

Other communities and hamlets within Yancey include Bald Creek, Celo, Green Mountain, Micaville, Pensacola, Sioux, Busick, Day Brook, Hamrick, Murchison, Ramseytown, and Swiss.

The Cherokee inhabited present-day Yancey County, and in 1989 an archeological dig site revealed a pre-historic village and burial mound. The site, located near the Cane River Middle School, testifies to the tribe's well-developed culture before the inhabitation of the white man.

The English, Irish, and Scotch-Irish settled the region in the mid-eighteenth century. Most of these settlers focused on agriculture, and crop production was the main economic indicator of Yancey County well into the twentieth century. Burley tobacco remained the primary crop grown in Yancey, and numerous storage barns continue to stand in the county.

In the early 1900s, the railroad transformed Yancey economy from an agricultural-based town into a mining community. The Black Mountain Railroad, reaching Yancey in 1911, allowed for the convenient transportation of mica. For most of the twentieth century, the mica industry flourished in Yancey County, and the town of Micaville received its name, for it was the central mining location in the county.

The Blue Mountain Parkway runs along Yancey's eastern border. The parkway brings substantial tourism traffic to the region, and due to the county's rich natural environment, numerous campers, hikers, and outdoor enthusiasts visit Yancey annually. In addition to the Blue Ridge Parkway, the highest mountain east of the Mississippi rests in Yancey County. Mount Mitchell, which is over 6,500 feet tall, received its name for Elisha Mitchell. A UNC professor who sought to determine the height of the tallest mountains in North Carolina, Mitchell died in his attempt to establish the elevation of the mountain. The first state park of the state opened at Mount Mitchell in 1915, and parts of the Pisgah National Forest extend into Yancey.

Yancey is considered the most mountainous county in North Carolina. With the highest elevation of any county in the state, Yancey boasts in holding half of the ten highest peaks in the Eastern United States. Some geologists and historians believe that the Black Mountains of Yancey County are the oldest peaks on earth.

As in other mountain counties of North Carolina, crafts and artistry have long been traditions of Yancey County's culture. Over 600 residents specialize in quilting, basket weaving, woodwork, pottery, and sculpting. The artists of Yancey earn over $11 million for the county annually.

An important private academic institution operated in Yancey County from 1901 until 1926. The Yancey Collegiate Institute, originally created by the Baptist Association at Crabtree Church, was the result of concerned residents who wanted their children to receive a proper secondary education. In 1903, the N.C. General Assembly incorporated Yancey Collegiate Institute, and both boys and girls were allowed to attend the school and they were taught mathematics, writing, literature, and reading. The institute proved successful because many Yancey students later pursued degrees at Mars Hill College and Wake Forest College. The institute would open as a public high school in 1926, and it eventually was descaled to become Burnsville Elementary School. Today, the site is part of the National Register of Historic Places, and the Blue Ridge Reading Team operates out of the schoolhouses that were once used by the Yancey Collegiate Institute.






Our Experience


This was a nice downtown with a central square. Laurie liked the murals and artsy stuff. The Nu Wray Inn along one side of the central square was built in 1833.

NOTE If you read the courthouse description about it does not match the photos of the courthouse. We discovered later that the historic courthouse is on the other side of the central square and I think is the police department. We always try to visit the older historic courthouses even if they are no longer the current official courthouse. We goofed up on this one.

Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:01:52 AM EDT Altitude: 2792 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:01:58 AM EDT Altitude: 2792 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:02:18 AM EDT Altitude: 2792 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:02:40 AM EDT Altitude: 2792 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:03:19 AM EDT Altitude: 2792 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:04:01 AM EDT Altitude: 2792 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:05:43 AM EDT Altitude: 2815 ft Camera: iPhone 6sDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:06:52 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:07:08 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:07:21 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: iPhone 5sDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:07:32 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:07:43 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:07:55 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:08:08 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:08:34 AM EDT Altitude: 2827 ft Camera: iPhone 5sDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:08:44 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:08:55 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:09:08 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:09:28 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:10:11 AM EDT Altitude: 2818 ft Camera: iPhone 6sDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:10:33 AM EDT Altitude: 2780 ft Camera: iPhone 5sDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:11:20 AM EDT Altitude: 2794 ft Camera: iPhone 5sDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:11:41 AM EDT Altitude: 2802 ft Camera: iPhone 5sDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:11:58 AM EDT Altitude: 2806 ft Camera: iPhone 5sDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina
Jul 18, 2016 Mon 9:12:00 AM EDT Altitude: 2836 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, North Carolina



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