A Description of the Area
Physical environment, topography, climate, foliage: Highlands and Cashiers are located at the intersection of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Its location is considered to be one of the most physically attractive in the continental United States. Highlands has the highest elevation of any incorporated town east of the Rockies, and Lake Glenville, located just outside of Cashiers, has the highest elevation of any lake east of the Rockies. The Highlands/Cashiers plateau is surrounded by the Nantahala Forest in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. With an elevation of 4,880 feet, Whiteside Mountain is considered by some to be the oldest mountain in the world, and its granite-faced escarpment is over 1,800 feet in elevation.
Many specimens of flora and fauna in the Highlands/Cashiers plateau are extremely rare, and are found in only two or three places in the world. The area is the only authentic rain forest in the Continental United States. It has many waterfalls, including Whitewater Falls in the Cashiers area, with a vertical drop of more than twice that of Niagara Falls and approximately that of Victoria Falls in Africa.
The area has four distinct seasons, each of which is glorious. Because of altitude, rainfall and foliage, summer temperatures rarely exceed 80 degrees. The average maximum is 76 degrees. As a result of its southern location and southerly air flow, the extremes of winter are moderated. In spring, the wildflowers, rhododendron, and mountain laurel are breathtaking, and because of the hardwood forests, the fall colors are spectacular, rivaling or exceeding the most vivid colors anywhere.
Activities: The area is a paradise for golfers, fly fishermen, tennis players, bird watchers (the Highlands/Cashiers Audubon Chapter is host to one the annual winter bird counts conducted by the Audubon Society), canoeing, whitewater rafting, horseback riding, hiking, camping, and rock-climbing.
Amenities: Cashiers and Highlands abound with award-winning restaurants, art galleries, theatre companies, summer music festivals, year-round lecture programs, and craft and antique fairs. As just one example, every Fourth of July, the Greenville Symphony Orchestra presents an outdoor picnic program on the shores of Lake Sapphire. Both communities are adding cultural facilities at a rapid rate. Cashiers has just completed construction of a major library, a 20,000 square foot community center, and a major visual arts center, the Bascom, is scheduled to open this summer.
Community spirit: The Highlands/Cashiers communities have a small town atmosphere that has almost vanished from America. For example, each year in Highlands there is a celebration of the lighting of the Town Christmas Tree and the beginning of the Advent season. Just imagine 5,000 people gathering in the closed-off center of town, each with a cup of hot chocolate, cookie and songbook in hand, singing Christmas carols, hearing a homily preached by one of the town’s many clergymen, praying together, and listening to an interdenominational choir in an unabashedly Christian atmosphere. The Mitford series could be describing the area. Cashiers is a two traffic light town, and Highlands has four, only two of which seem necessary.
Accessibility: The Highlands/Cashiers area is less than a two and a half hour drive, most of which is a four-lane or interstate highway, from Atlanta, and a shorter drive from Asheville and Greenville. Atlanta is a world-class city, with its professional sports, symphony, zoo, shopping, aquarium, theatre, medical facilities, restaurants, and the busiest airport in the world.
Schools and continuing education: One of the finest preparatory schools in the Southeast, Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, is located fifteen miles from Highlands, and the Highlands/Cashiers school systems are excellent and frequently produce Morehead Scholars. In addition, there is a very strong home school community. Southwestern Community College, an excellent junior college with a continuing adult education program, has a satellite campus in Cashiers, and Western Carolina University, with an enrollment of 9,000, is located less than 20 miles north of Cashiers.
People: There are 3,200 year-round residents of Highlands and 5,000 in Cashiers. In the summer the population of the area swells to 50,000. The Highlands/Cashiers area used to be purely seasonal, but is now attracting more retired or semi-retired business owners, executives and professionals as full-time residents. In addition, as a result of the digital revolution, many residents are reverse commuters, maintaining their principal residences in the area. Many of the part-time residents essentially split their time between homes elsewhere in the southeast and the Highlands-Cashiers area. Finally, there is a growing population of proprietors of businesses serving the two communities.
Despite the fact that the Highlands/Cashiers communities are Christian in many respects, there are many residents who have never heard the Bible taught or the Gospel forcefully preached. In addition, there appears to be a need to minister to a large Hispanic population engaged in the construction, hospitality, and service industries in the area.
Additional Information: For more information, see www.highlandschamber.org and http://www.cashiersnorthcarolina.com
