Alleghany County is North Carolina’s eastern most county in the Blue Ridge. Bordered by Virginia on the north, and Ashe, Wilkes and Surry counties on the west, south and east respectively, it is 235 square miles with an average elevation of approximately 2,700 feet. At 4,175 feet, Catherine’s Knob, the highest peak, rises out of the Peach Bottom Mountains.

The most prominent geographic feature is the "Crest of the Blue Ridge," the Continental Divide that separates Wilkes and Alleghany counties and separates those streams and rivers of Alleghany County and the New River Valley which eventually flow to the Mississippi and those of Wilkes and the Yadkin Valley that find their way to the Atlantic.

The county is divided into two great valleys. In the west, between the Peach Bottom Mountains that bisect the county and the New River flowing along much of the western and northern border, lays a broad valley principally drained by Elk and Prathers creeks. In the east, the Crest of the Blue Ridge and the Peach Bottom Mountains form a valley drained by the Little River as it flows toward Virginia.

Alleghany is believed to have been derived from an Indian word meaning "a fine stream." Indians, primarily Cherokee, roamed the county at one time, but most of them had departed when white settlers began trickling in after the Revolutionary War. These were rugged pioneers primarily of English, German, Scottish, and Irish origin, willing to endure the hardship of subsistence farming in the wilderness. They cleared the high land first because much of lowland was too marshy and they lacked equipment to drain it.

Alleghany has always been known for its natural beauty. An early explorer, Bishop Spagenberg of the Moravian Church, crossed the Blue Ridge in the fall of 1752, seeking land for Moravian settlers. In his journal, he described a bitter scramble over steep mountains into a rich valley where three creeks flowed together "and make a considerable river, which flows into the Mississippi according to the best knowledge of our hunters." There he found "countless springs" and "so much grass that ... a man could make several hundred loads of hay." A "magnificent chestnut and pine forest" was nearby, along with "many hundred -- yes, thousand crab-apple trees." There was "wood, mast, wild game, fish and a free range for hunting" and "meadow land and pasture in abundance."

The territory was part of sprawling Ashe County whose government was headquartered in Jefferson in the far west. During the early 1800s, the number of eastern settlers increased and required a more accessible government. In 1859, the state legislature carved Alleghany County from the eastern portion of the territory. The coming of the Civil War delayed creation of a local government.

The area grew and with the settlers came churches, primarily the frontier faiths, Methodists and Baptists. At the start of the war, there were few African-Americans and few slaveholders in this portion of the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, such that there was considerable Union sentiment. It led to the establishment of the Union Baptist sect in 1858 near what is now Lansing, North Carolina. A number of Union churches remain active until this day.

In 1866, several citizens donated land near the center of the county for a county seat. One of the donors was fond of Greek culture and the name Sparta was chosen in deference to him. By 1890 the town boasted of a courthouse, jail, several hotels, a newspaper — The Alleghany Star, which can be traced forward to today’s Alleghany News — a school and a brass band. The town was not incorporated until 1925. Attorney R. Floyd Crouse was its first mayor.

In 1890, Hugh Chatham discovered the beauty of the Laurel Branch region of eastern Alleghany County as he rode horseback buying wool for his father’s mill. He persuaded friends to join with him in forming the Roaring Gap Summer Resort Community. Four years later, a three-story, 200-room hotel had been constructed. By the turn of the century, the community offered guests year-round ice harvested in the winter and stored at the hotel, telephone service, tennis, basketball and bowling and trout fishing nearby. In 1914, the hotel burned and the community languished for a dozen years until the Graystone Inn opened in 1926 under the newly constituted Roaring Gap, Inc., which later became Roaring Gap Club.

During these early years, the Blue Ridge Mountains were less a vantage point and more a barrier separating Alleghany County from the rest of the state. Commerce and society were inclined into Ashe County and northward into Virginia. In 1911, the Elkin-Alleghany Railroad was formed to bring rail service up the mountain to Roaring Gap and improve transportation to the North Carolina Piedmont. Track was laid to the foot of the mountain, but no further. The company eventually went bankrupt. The 1914 fire that destroyed the hotel and road improvements probably led to its demise. Alleghany County has the dubious distinction of being the only county in western North Carolina that never had rail service.

In the early part of the 20th century, the automobile became the dominant form of transportation. There was no national system of highways. In the early years, entrepreneurs traveled the United States erecting signs or painting colored blazes on bridges and roadside posts to mark routes from state to state. For a fee, individuals could join these auto trail organizations and receive instructions on how to navigate the series of state and local roads across the county.

One such auto trail was the Great Lakes to Florida route that connected Detroit, Michigan, with Jacksonville, Florida, and it ran through Alleghany County. In the 1920s, the U.S. Government instituted a series of federal highways, many of which followed these early auto trails. The Great Lakes to Florida trail became U.S. Highway 21.

Until the opening of I-77 in the 1970s, in the fall Alleghany saw a steady stream of snowbirds heading south through the county on U.S. 21. Their return in the spring was a herald of the end of winter. A 1952 Chamber of Commerce brochure listed 10 hotels, motels and tourist courts that served the traveling public and touted local amenities like a newly established 20-bed hospital, Saturday V.F.W. sponsored square dances and golf at the championship course at the Roaring Gap Club for a $3-per-day green fee.

President Roosevelt signing Social Security Act of 1935. Also shown, left to right: Rep. Robert Doughton (D-NC); Sen. Robert Wagner (D-NY); Rep. John Dingell, Sr. (D-MI); Unknown man in bowtie; Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins; Senator Pat Harrison (D-MS); Congressman David L. Lewis (D-MD).

In the 1930s, Alleghany native and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Bob Doughton, threw his support behind Social Security in exchange for assurance that a planned scenic roadway from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park would travel through North Carolina rather than Tennessee. Construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway brought jobs to many local residents who had lived by swapping produce from their subsistence farms for provisions they could not grow. It helped ease desperate economic conditions of the Great Depression.

The Parkway and other road improvements helped ease the county’s isolation and paved the way for manufacturing in the county. In 1943, the D & P Pipe Works came to Sparta in part because mountain laurel had proved to be a suitable substitute for imported briar, made scarce by World War II. Several textile manufacturers were to follow as locals found work sewing various articles of clothing. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, manufacturing provided a significant number of local jobs.

Another important milestone for the county was the Rural Electrification Administration. It led to the establishment of Blue Ridge Electric Membership Cooperative and the electrification of the county in 1939. Not only did it make local manufacturing possible, but helped move the local economy away from subsistence farming to dairy farming and manufacturing. Much of the electrification effort was spearheaded by County Extension Agent Emerson Black who desired to improve the lot of local farms.

Later the REA was expanded to include telephone service and in 1959, Skyline Telephone was formed and provided countywide phone service.

In the late 1960s, Appalachian Power of Virginia proposed a hydro-electric project that would dam the New River creating a large lake that extended into Alleghany and Ashe counties in North Carolina. A grass-roots effort, led in Alleghany County by attorneys Floyd Crouse and Ed Adams effectively halted the plans when President Gerald Ford signed into law a Congressional declaration establishing a 26.5 mile section of the South Fork a National Wild and Scenic River.

Had plans for the dam proceeded, it has been estimated it would have submerged 900 residences, 600 farms, five post offices and 15 churches in North Carolina and Virginia and forever altered the character of the region.

Alleghany County continues to grow and change. Agriculture continues to be a major part of the local economy. When state price supports depressed the price of milk, local farmers began growing native Fraser fir for the Christmas tree market. Today, Alleghany is third in the state in Christmas tree production, which accounts for nearly $20 million in income. Dairy, beef, burley tobacco, nursery, and greenery rounds out over $43 million agricultural income.

The sewing plants have all closed, but local manufacturing has diversified to include yarn production, floor cleaning equipment and supplies, composite materials, wrought-iron furniture and marketing materials. And the grandson of D&P Pipe Works turns out Dr Grabow pipes at its only plant in Sparta.

The county looks ahead to growth in its tourism economy as plans are unfolding to build the Sparta Teapot Museum, a $10 million museum and cultural center to be the permanent home of the Kamm 10,000-plus piece teapot collection. These are not your grandmother’s teapots, but contain many antique pieces and unusual creations by famous artists.

As the county’s only incorporated town, Sparta is at the heart of a vibrant community that retains a sense of small-town charm where friends and newcomers are warmly welcomed. Its two shopping centers and old downtown surrounding its historic Courthouse bustle with activity and trade.

In the surrounding countryside, much remains of the natural beauty that so charmed early explorers. Sunrise comes later in the morning because of shadows cast by green mountains. In the summer canoeists flock to the New River and anglers stalk the elusive small-mouth bass and musky. Motorists, cyclists and hikers explore the Crest of the Blue Ridge on the Parkway and stop at Doughton Park, one of the most extensive park facilities along the scenic roadway, dedicated to the Alleghany native so critical to the road’s construction.

On Sundays, hymns of praise ring out from main street churches of brick and stone and from numerous wooden structures around the county, many more than a century old. And when the sun sets, on most nights can be heard the sounds of a fiddle, banjo and guitar as mountain tunes waft through the night sky.