By Peter H. Lewis • AVL Watchdog | By 1860, about 15 percent of the population of Western North Carolina was enslaved. Only a small percentage of the White settlers, who had pushed out Indigenous Native Americans, owned slaves — about 2 percent of households, according to Katherine Calhoun Cutshall, collections manager, North Carolina Room, Pack Memorial Library — and of those, most owned one or two. The majority were owned by a handful of elite families, whose names are commemorated throughout the region. 

On Monday, June 22, Southwestern Community College hosted Nantahala Health Foundation representatives as they set up a mask distribution site at the Burrell Building on the Jackson Campus.

After two years in the position, Jackson County Public Schools Superintendent Kim Elliott will retire as head of the school system. 

The public comment portion of tonight’s meeting of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners drew 16 people who spoke for more than an hour about “Sylva Sam,” the Confederate solider statue who looks over downtown Sylva from the steps of the old Jackson County Courthouse.

Jackson County Department of Public Health has identified a COVID-19 cluster in a local medical provider’s office.

Knoxville, Tennessee-based Johnson Architecture, along with project partner IBI Placemaking, recently earned an award in North Carolina for the Cherokee Cultural Corridor Master Plan.

Haywood County Public Health received notice July 2 that another Haywood County resident has tested positive for COVID-19.  This brings the number of cases recorded in Haywood County as of 5 p.m. on July 2 to 93.  The individual is in isolation at home.