No Better Place In the World

Written By: Lance Hardin - Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust | Issue: April 2025 | Photograph By: Stephanie Contreras

One hundred and fifty years ago this year, two developers from Kansas, lured by dreams of a commercial thoroughfare and rumors of a bounty of natural resources, traveled to the Highlands plateau.

Led by a local teenage guide, in March 1875 Samuel Kelsey and Clinton Hutchinson climbed the Cherokee trail from Franklin, negotiated the Cullasaja River and Dry Falls, and eventually made their way to the top of Satulah Mountain from where they visually surveyed the wilderness that would become the town of Highlands. The Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust was founded less than a decade later as the Highlands Improvement Society, dedicated to beautifying the new town.

Kelsey and Hutchinson purchased 840 acres for $2 an acre, but what they got was essentially untamed wilderness; with the exception of a few acres of abandoned apple trees, the Plateau was covered in rhododendron thickets and primeval forests. Future roads were flagged but not cleared; an early visiting journalist describes following Kelsey through the clutch of rhododendrons while the developer pointed out “Main Street” and church sites.

As the town slowly emerged from the forest, the Highlands Improvement Society built planters and installed benches, even then focused on preserving the natural bounty that was already beginning to lure future Highlands citizens from around the country.

From its inception Highlands was promoted as a healthy destination. An 1876 brochure declared that there is “no better place in the world for health, comfort and enjoyment” and in 1887 it was claimed to be “the greatest health and pleasure resort in the United States.”

In 1909, prompted by fears of a rumored hotel, the Highlands Improvement Society led the effort to raise $500 from local citizens to purchase and protect the summit of Satulah Mountain. Five years later Ravenel Park, the location of Sunset and Sunrise Rocks, was conserved as a result of a gift from the Ravenel family.

The Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust is proud of its long history of protecting and conserving the natural attributes that make Highlands, Cashiers, and the surrounding area so special.

As part of Highlands’ sesquicentennial celebration HCLT will be providing the public 150 native tree saplings, including oak, birch, and even a few American Chestnuts cultivated from “survivor” trees on HCLT properties.  Please follow HCLT on Facebook and Instagram or check out hcltnc.org throughout the year for more details on our native tree giveaways.