Mitchell's Lodge & Cottages

Celebrating 70 years

1939-2009

Welcome to a small pictorial history of Mitchell's Lodge & Cottages and beautiful Highlands, North Carolina.

Mitchell's Lodge & Cottages has been a part of Highlands history since 1939. From 1939 - 2000 it was known as Mitchell's Motel. At that time, Highlands, NC, was known as the "Roof Garden of the Southeast" and was the highest town, of incorporated standing, in Eastern America with an average elevation of 4118 feet. Air conditioned by nature, its summer days were cool, usually below 70 degrees.

For three generations the Mitchell Family has been welcoming guests and has seen Highlands grow from a small mountain town to an exclusive resort.

For your enjoyment, we've included a historical treat in the form of many scanned newspaper articles from different periods, depicting the Mitchell family's contribution to this awe inspiring area.

Below is an excerpt from a book by Randolph P. Shaffner which can be obtained via the official website of the Highlands Chamber of Commerce.

A Brief History of Highlands, N.C.

The small town of Highlands was founded in 1875 by two developers living in Kansas who, according to legend, took a map in hand and drew a line from New York to New Orleans. Then they passed another line between Chicago and Savannah. These lines, they predicted, would be the great trade routes of the future, and where they crossed would someday be a great population center.

What evolved was a health and summer resort at more than 4,000 feet on the highest crest of the western North Carolina plateau in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. This paradisial settlement, the highest incorporated town east of the Rockies, provided common ground for both Northern and Southern pioneers a decade after their great Civil War. By 1883 nearly 300 immigrants from the Eastern states were calling Highlands home.

Very little changed in the town until the late 1920s, when the Cullasaja River was dammed, forming Lake Sequoyah, to provide hydroelectric power. A spectacularly scenic road from Highlands toward Franklin was carved into the rock walls of the Cullasaja gorge, and the muddy roads in and out of town were reinforced with crushed stone.

The town’s population today stands at 1,047 year-round residents with 15,000–20,000 summer guests and 222 businesses.

Heart of the Blue Ridge: Highlands, North Carolina, by Randolph P. Shaffner