Cowee Valley rubies, Franklin

The town calls itself the Gem Capital of the World, and it is built on a thousand-year-old Cherokee mound.

Franklin is the county seat of Macon County, North Carolina, sitting inside the Nantahala National Forest with a population of 4,175 at the 2020 census. The town and the country around it are rich in gems and minerals, which is where the local nickname comes from. In the Cowee valley north of town the US Geological Survey records the Cowee Ruby Mine as a past producer of gemstone, a surface working in private ownership.

The older story here is the better one. Long before Europeans arrived this was Nikwasi, which the Cherokee translated as the centre of activity, an ancient and important town built around a platform mound believed to be at least a thousand years old. The Cherokee put their Council House on top of it. The mound is still there, in downtown Franklin, and it is visible today.

It very nearly was not preserved. Nikwasi Mound stayed in private hands until the town of Franklin bought the site in 1946, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 1819 the Cherokee had been forcibly relocated to the Qualla Boundary, which is now home to the federally recognised Eastern Band of Cherokee.

The European-American town came later and was named for Jesse Franklin, one of two state commissioners who surveyed and organised it in 1820 as the seat of what became Macon County in 1828. Franklin himself went on to be a United States Senator for North Carolina and then its 20th governor. The town was not formally incorporated until 1855.

Come for the stones and stay for the walking. Franklin is a well-used base for the Nantahala National Forest, the Great Smoky Mountains and the Appalachian Trail, which is a rare combination to find in one small town.