Recreation and Places to Visit

Perhaps the best-known scenic attraction is Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is located astride the North Carolina-Tennessee border. The park’s mountainous terrain and primitive wilderness afford ideal conditions for hiking, fishing, and camping. Western North Carolina’s spectacular mountain panoramas and quiet beauty are accessible from the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic highway running from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains. Along the route are beautiful displays of rhododendrons, mountain laurels, and rugged terrain, including Mount Mitchell (2,037 m/6,684 ft), the highest peak in the eastern United States.

Other National Areas

A major attraction of the coastal region is the Outer Banks, much of which has been set aside as the Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout national seashores. The area offers extensive opportunities for seaside recreation. Deep-sea fishing off the Outer Banks is excellent. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, near the cape, is the tallest lighthouse in North America at 63 m (208 ft). The national seashore also contains one of the state’s three national wildlife refuges—Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Also located at Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks is the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the place where the first motor-powered flight was made in 1903. Fort Raleigh National Historic Site on Roanoke Island commemorates the place where the English first attempted to establish a colony in America. Moores Creek National Battlefield and Guilford Courthouse National Military Park are sites of important battles of the American Revolution (1775-1783). The home of the poet Carl Sandburg, Connemara, at Flat Rock, is a national historic site.

Pisgah, Nantahala, Uwharrie, and Croatan national forests cover 486,000 hectares (1.2 million acres). Pisgah National Forest lies in the mountains, as does Nantahala National Forest. Because the sun penetrates to the bottom of Nantahala Gorge only in the middle of the day, the Cherokee called it the “Land of the Noon Day Sun,” or “Nantahala.” About 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) of virgin wilderness forest in the Nantahala National Forest has been set aside as the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, to memorialize the poet who wrote the poem “Trees.” The Uwharrie National Forest, in the central Piedmont region of the state, is a fairly rugged area of ancient volcanic mountains that have resisted erosion and weathering better than the surrounding countryside. The forest received its name from German settlers, for whom uwharrie meant “new home.” On the coast is the Croatan National Forest, which derived its name from the name of a main town of the Algonquin people that occupied the region when the English arrived in the 1580s.

State Parks

There are 63 state parks, of which Kerr Lake State Recreational Area is the largest at 43,246 hectares (106,864 acres); this reservoir area includes nine different parks. Hanging Rock State Park, in the Sauratown Mountains, is well known for its vertical cliffs and rock climbing opportunities. Pettigrew State Park, along the shoreline of Lake Phelps, is located on a former plantation called Somerset Place. Fort Macon, completed in 1834 and fought over during the American Civil War (1861-1865), is a state park near Morehead City. The state has a nature preserve near Southern Pines. Also under state administration are a number of historic sites, among which are Fort Fisher, south of Wilmington, where a museum and remnants of the Civil War earthwork fort commemorate one of the largest amphibious landings prior to the invasion of Normandy in World War II. Tryon Palace Historic Site and Gardens, at New Bern, has been restored to its appearance during colonial times. Town Creek Indian Mounds, near Mount Gilead, is the location of some reconstructed Native American temples. A fine example of a mountain log home is preserved at the Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site near Weaverville, commemorating the man who was governor of North Carolina from 1862 to 1865 and later a United States senator.

The North Carolina Division of Forest Resources operates a system of six Educational State Forests—Clemmons, Holmes, Jordan, Rendezvous Mountain, Turnbull Creek, and Tuttle—as well as several other state forests. The educational forests, the first of which was designated in 1977, are designed to teach the public—especially schoolchildren—about the forest environment.

Museums

The North Carolina Museum of Art, in Raleigh, is the nation’s first art museum whose collection was founded with state funds. At Hickory is an art museum with American and European works and Chinese porcelains. Other art collections are in Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Durham, and Winston-Salem. Raleigh and Charlotte have natural history museums, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a planetarium. The state also has many small museums devoted to special displays, such as minerals, handicrafts, Native American lore, and the material of local historical societies.

Other Places to Visit

The Biltmore Estate is one of the country’s best examples of the mansions built at the turn of the 20th century by American millionaires. It was designed and built in the early French Renaissance style by George W. Vanderbilt. The birthplace of President Andrew Johnson is in Raleigh, and that of the novelist Thomas Wolfe is in Asheville. In Winston-Salem is Old Salem, a Moravian town founded in 1766 (see Moravian Church). Many 18th-century buildings, including Salem Tavern and Winkler Bakery, are still in use. Automobile races are held annually at speedways in Charlotte, Asheville, Winston-Salem, Hickory, and North Wilkesboro. The U.S.S. North Carolina, a World War II battleship, is permanently docked in a berth alongside the Cape Fear River at Wilmington as a war memorial. A former Native American trading post at Murphy is now the Cherokee County Historical Museum, featuring 2,000 exhibits of the Native American lifestyle.

Source: MSN Encarta: Online Encyclopedia