One of the most enduring urban legends of the Appalachian Trail is the story of Ottie Cline Powell, in Lexington, Virginia. Powell was only four years old when, on November 9, 1890, he walked from his one-room school near the Powell farm into the forest near Bluff Mountain to collect fallen branches for kindling for…
The Phantom Hiker of the Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Mountains harbor countless ghost stories, from the phantom hiker of Grandfather Mountain to mysterious figures glimpsed along misty ridges. But few encounters are as chilling as the one that happened on a foggy May evening in 1972. The Appalachian Trail was proposed in 1921 and constructed throughout the 1920s and the 1930s. In…
The Ghostly Lady of Transylvania County
The mountains of western North Carolina can be unforgiving, but more importantly, they can also be a mysterious, ghostly place, where many things may appear out of nowhere, like past residents, who still keep watch over the land. It’s said that many years ago, two men decided to go fishing in Transylvania County, when the…
The Mysterious Moon-Eyed People of Appalachia
Some believe the Fort Mountain Stone Wall, located in Northern Georgia at Fort Mountain State Park, is proof that the mysterious Moon-Eyed people did, in fact, occupy Appalachia long before the arrival of the Cherokee. The Moon-Eyed people were a group of short, bearded, white-skinned individuals whose eyes were sensitive to light, making it difficult…