Watauga County Court House - Boone, North Carolina

Boone is the Heart of the High Country and the premiere "quality of life" community of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Consistently ranked as one of the "Best Small Towns in America," Boone is a bustling university town and the center of tourism and commerce for Watauga County (and the county seat) and the region. Known for its excellence in health care, education, shopping and the arts, Boone offers a palate of opportunity surrounded by four seasons of changing scenery.

Watauga County in northwestern North Carolina has a land area of 321 square miles and adjoins Tennessee. Elevations here range from 2,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level. Boone, the county seat, has an area of about four square miles and an average altitude of 3,333 feet.

Historians note that this area was originally explored in 1752 by Bishop August Gottlieb Spangeler of Pennsylvania, who was seeking land in the backcountry of North Carolina for Moravian colonists to settle.

Although the Cherokee had hunted seasonally in this region, the first permanent settlers came from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New England. Jordan Council established a store in what is now downtown Boone.

Watauga County was established in 1849, and the town of Boone, which was incorporated in 1872, was named for Daniel Boone, who first explored and hunted in the region in the 1760s.