Bryson City, North Carolina

Day 1366

     Bryson City, North Carolina is located about 70 miles southwest of Asheville, NC.

     The historic courthouse is now the city visitor center, and for a change, was open with a nice exhibit on the area. 

     The Tuckasegee River flows directly through the City.

     Bryson City use to be the Cherokee settlement of Kituwa, which stood here for hundreds of years. 

     Thaddeus Dillard Bryson was born February 13, 1829 in Haywood County, North Carolina. On September 7, 1861 he was Commissioned a Colonel in the 20th North Carolina Infantry of the Confederate Army. After the war, in September 1868, he acquired a large tract of land on the north side of the Tuckasegee River. 17,000 Cherokee Indians had been forced out of the area in 1838, leaving the land open for white man settlement. The town was originally called Charleston. The Postal Service screwed up the mail because it confused this city with Charleston, South Carolina. They are not even close to each other. Nevertheless, in 1889 the name was changed by the citizens, population 25, to Bryson City, to acknowledge the many services rendered to the city by Thaddeus Bryson.