The Effect Of Tourism On Land Value In Watauga County, North Carolina, 1890 To 1920

This study investigates the effect of tourism on land values in Blowing Rock, North Carolina from 1890 to 1920. Seasonal visitors from the nation's elite class made annual trips to Blowing Rock, of Watauga County, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. The methodology of this study consisted of comparing the township of Blowing Rock with nearby Meat Camp via county census and tax records for the years in question, as well as consulting secondary accounts of early and modern tourism in Appalachia. Local tax records show an accelerated increase in land values in Blowing Rock within a few decades. In comparison with Meat Camp, a township also in Watauga that depended substantially more on agriculture than tourism, it becomes clear that affluent interest in Blowing Rock caused land value to rise even above those in other areas of the county. This trend continued throughout the next century in many parts of Appalachia, especially Western North Carolina