Burnsville, North Carolina a Treat-- Part 1: Named For A War of 1812 Privateer

From the July 2013 Our State Magazine (NC) "Burnsville" by Jeremy Markovich.

I'd never heard of this town until I wrote about Otway Burns in my War of 1812 blog, Never Forgotten. He was a famous privateer from North Carolina in that war with a very interesting story.    There is a statue of him in the town square, even though he never lived there. The town was named after him.

Strangely, you'd expect a town named after a seagoing man to be near or at the coast, but Burnsville is up in the Appalachian Mountains, near Asheville.

Burnsville is small town America, perhaps even another Mayberry with its 1700 people located in Yancey County which only tallies just 17,000 people.

Residents want a slice of the tourism business and a big subject of conversation is "The Road." That would be U.S. Highway 19 East which will become a four-lane road that will connect with I-26 and then make Asheville just 40 minutes away.

Perhaps a Stop in Order the Next Time Through Western North Carolina. --RoadDog