The Origin of Us

Issue: Winter 2025

2025 marks the 150th Anniversary of the founding of the Town of Highlands.

That founding was not without its difficulties. Samuel Kelsey and Clinton Carter “C.C.” Hutchinson arrived on the Highlands Plateau in March of 1875 and bought 839 acres for the creation of the new town that would become Highlands.

Their vision was to establish a community with a healthy environment where they would live and raise their families, where exceptionally fine fruits and vegetables could be grown, and where people from the cities of the South would enjoy a summer resort.

The first person to establish a residence in Highlands after the two founders was T. Baxter White, a native of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Intending to travel to the west, Mr. White passed through New York on his journey and there learned of the new town being established in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

He changed his plans and came to Highlands in 1875. He immediately bought land on what would become Main Street and built a home that would also serve as the town’s first store and post office. This store opened in July 1875, and was the entire business district of the town.

The closest access road in 1875 was a primitive wagon trail that came no nearer than two miles from Main Street. Travelers approaching Highlands were warned of its shortcomings by neighbors in surrounding towns that were at lower altitudes. A letter to the newspaper reported that, during the winter of 1876, two men from Minnesota were passing through Seneca bound for Highlands. They were told that Highlands was buried under six to eight feet of snow, and they turned around and went back to Minnesota.

But it appears that Mr. Kelsey was not discouraged. His promotion of the new town was in full swing from the beginning, and he was not modest in a pamphlet he published describing Highlands as being “The Greatest HEALTH and PLEASURE RESORT in the United States” and “The Most PERFECT CLIMATIC SANITARIUM in the World.”

While enthusiastic, these promotional efforts brought little response. At the end of 1876 there were five homes in Highlands. Eleven persons had bought land by July of 1878. Twenty-two lots and three other tracts had been sold in the first three years of the town’s existence, and Baxter White had bought eight of these properties.

There was no public water or electric power in the town. An editorial in an 1883 issue of the Blue Ridge Enterprise, the first newspaper in Highlands, lamented, “(a) line of ferry boats should be established at some of our street crossings for the accommodation of the public. In some places the water and mud is too deep to ford during the rainy spells, and as we are not all swimmers, drowning accidents are liable to occur.”

But better times were coming. By the 1890s, Highlands was increasingly recognized as a beneficial destination for an extended visit or for a summer home and offered accommodations for both.

As Samuel Kelsey and C.C. Hutchinson had intended, the benefits of a mountain climate had begun to attract visitors and summer residents.

In 1890, William Rutherford wrote from Highlands to a former college classmate. He said, “Your very welcome letter reached me at Athens just before I left for this place. My health has been poor for some considerable time, and I found it necessary to seek some higher altitude. This place is said to be higher above sea level than any place this side of the Rocky Mountains being 3,817 feet…The air is certainly pure and so thin that rapid walking puts you soon out of breath. A doctor told me, only yesterday, that a stay of six months would rejuvenate any person, no matter what was the matter with him. It is certainly a most delightful summer retreat.”

The second wave had begun to arrive. By 1905, permanent residents were still very few, but the number of summer residents was estimated to be 800. The town was on its way. A viable economy had developed and would provide the foundation for the active and enjoyable community that we know today.

(This article is reprinted, in part, from the 2010 Spring and Summer newsletters of the Highlands Historical Society. These newsletters and other historical information and exhibits about Highlands can be found at the HHS website: highlandshistory.com. The Highlands Historical Village and Museum will open for the 2025 season on Thursday, May 22.)