young boy sits in hay loft in Lost Cove NC

The vanished community of Lost Cove

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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Photo above: Hosea Bailey sitting in Velmer Bailey’s barn.

Author Christy A. Smith

Please welcome guest author Christy A. Smith. Smith is a part-time Professor in Appalachian Studies at King University in Bristol, Tennessee. She is also Director of Unicoi County Prevention Coalition in Erwin, Tennessee. She has published poetry in several anthologies and literary magazines. Her first book, Lost Cove, North Carolina: A Portrait of a Vanished Community, 1864-1957, is published by McFarland and Company, and is the first ever published historical work on Lost Cove, North Carolina.

For over 60 years, Lost Cove has remained a deserted community.  Lost Cove is now “one of eastern America’s most legendary Ghost Towns.” The mountainous community with flowing springs, rolling fields, and flat lands caters to the avid hiker.  Its rich soil and forest enabled families to live without the chaos of everyday societal woes and helped them form a sustainable community. Lost Cove boundaries,  routes, and debates have filtered through newspaper articles from North Carolina to California for over fifty years, painting a legendary settlement that wooed the outsider’s love of Appalachia. 

The history of this settlement, situated high above the Nolichucky and South Toe Rivers, demonstrates how families in remote communities throughout the Appalachians survived from the Civil War era until the mid-twentieth century.  Here, families and land unite, in order to survive. Interactions with the outside world are limited. There are no crossroads or highways, only boundary lines and paths that stretch along Narrow Branch from Poplar, North Carolina, Flat Top Mountain (Joe Lewis Fields) by way of Spivey Mountain or White Oak flats in Yancey County, and the Clinchfield railroad tracks from Unaka Springs.

After Morgan Bailey’s family moved into the cove, other families followed. By the 1880’s, families such as the Tipton’s and Millers nestled into this secluded community.   The people of Lost Cove were determined to battle the harsh elements and live a quiet life, away from the chaos of war. Since Lost Cove sits high above the Nolichucky Gorge, the terrain was ideal for an alternate life. 

Velmer Bailey's cornfield with Isaiah and Hosea Bailey.
Velmer Bailey’s cornfield with Isaiah and Hosea Bailey.

J. C. Bryant lived in the cove from 1934-1952. His grandmother and grandfather, Arch and Cindy Miller, moved in around 1926 to help his relatives Swin and Martha Miller. There were at least thirteen houses in the settlement at the time: 

“From Lost Cove Station, Mack English’s house sat next to Big Branch. After English’s house came Aunt Hester and Uncle Wiley’s house, then the Miller’s house, Frank Bryant’s house, Swin Miller’s house, Velmer Bailey’s house, Clifford Miller’s house, Chester Bailey’s house, Bob Miller’s house, the School and Church building, then John Miller’s house, and the sawmill.”

There were four other houses in the cove during the 1930s-1950s. These houses included families such as the Coopers and Howells. 

Kinship was a constant force in the settlement, and its influence can be seen in every aspect of life. Lost Cove families worked together to provide enough food and shelter for all in the settlement. J.C. recalls “if we lacked an item, we would borrow it from another family, and next year we would return the item.” Families relied upon one another in planting crops, working the apple orchards, trading, timbering and processing wood, distilling moonshine, and during church ceremonies and school. 

Every year, women in Lost Cove gathered together to help cook and can the crops coming in from the gardens, while the men and young boys gathered and worked the fields. Velmer Bailey and Wiley Tipton had acres of apple orchards. Trina Presnell Fox remembers “how abundant the supply of mulberries, apples, and peaches were, for these fruits provided the basis for jellies and preserves for the families.”  Geneva McNabb’s family traded food if they needed a hand building an outbuilding, or having their land reaped for crops, or tending to the animals when a family member was sick or traveling to see family. Others swapped food for linens, wallpaper, or wood. 

Before 1920, Isaac Mac English laid the groundwork for a sawmill in the cove.  Residents such as Dock Tipton, Wiley Tipton, Velmer Bailey, and Clifford Miller all worked the saw mill.  Mrs. McNabb recalls Mack English owning a commissary in Lost Cove, “where tobacco, snuff, sugar, and other commodities were purchased.”

book cover of Lost Cove, North Carolina: A Portrait of a Vanished Community, 1864-1957

While men worked the mill, some women cooked for the workers. J. C. Bryant’s wife, Dixie Lee Tipton’s mother, worked as a cook for Mac English, while her father worked the saw mill. Mac English’s saw mill produced some of the best acid wood, pulp wood, and cross ties from the region.

Making moonshine was a family tradition for many families in the settlement. It provided much needed income, especially during the Depression years. When Geneva McNabb’s father Dock was not available to sell moonshine, her mother sold it on her trips to Erwin. Geneva’s grandfather John Tipton is named the “Hermit of Lost Cove.” John evaded revenuers for years…“Mr. Jeff Hyams, Deputy Collector, came most unexpectedly to the object of his search, John D. Tipton, the ‘Hermit of Lost Cove,’ and captured him, together with his distillery and apparatus. For twelve years Tipton has been engaged in his unlawful business, successfully eluding all efforts to entrap or catch him.” 

Even if moonshine was made in the settlement, families in Lost Cove never strayed from religion and education. To Lost Cove dwellers, religion kept them closer to God, and the school provided the best education for their children. Both church and school blended together religious and worldly issues to expand the students’ minds. For Lost Cove dwellers the church brought out religious zeal and emotional piety among the families, while the school taught autonomy and integrity. Both institutions used the same building, and the institutions augmented the social and kinship networks in the settlement.  

Self-reliance and determination were key characteristics in family life. Three prominent families: Bailey’s, Tipton’s, and Millers made Lost Cove their home for nearly ninety-five years. Other families included the Bryants, Coopers, Howells, and Presnells.

When families in the cove began moving away, lands were sold to families within the community but also to people outside of the community. There were various factors that contributed to the downfall of the settlement: the disapproval of a community road, discontinued passenger trains, the depletion of timber, population decrease, and education.

Lost Cove, North Carolina: A Portrait of a Vanished Community (1864-1957)

Lost Cove, North Carolina is now available for pre-order here

More articles on ghost towns:

North Carolina Ghost Town(Opens in a new browser tab)

Ghost Towns on the Cumberland Plateau(Opens in a new browser tab)

Women, booze, dice and cards(Opens in a new browser tab)

Ohio’s Little Cities of Black Diamonds(Opens in a new browser tab)

6 comments

  1. Such a sad thing to see the town come apart because of outsiders that were welcome, but not to bring change that led to the end of most their way of life, that had worked for almost 100 years! Harlan C. Bailey.

  2. My Grandfather grew up as a young child in Yancey County many years ago . It seems that not much has changed people keep moving out to the country then wanting a suburb. I live on Mt. Spokane in the state of Washington and our whole county is changing and it seems the government never helps but creates more problems than they solve.

  3. my name is carl miller my dad was eddie miller my grand parents was NAT AN RUBY MILLER love to get more pictures of LOST COVE an my aunt an uncles an just hearing the stores about that beautiful place HOPE TO HEAR FROM U SOON

  4. When I was about 9 yrs old, rode Clinchfield passenger train from Erwin to Lost Cove signal, then walked about 1 mile to velmer and seville Bailey’s house where we spent a week with them. They made us feel very welcome and fed us gr8. One of the few things that I will always remember from my Childhood.

  5. i have bought 3 copies of Christy Smiths great book on lost cove, enjoying one and shared 2 with friends .I have hiked into Lost Cove at least 10 times over the years and enjoyed them very much . I hiked the railroad from popular part of them but most from the Joe Louis Fields Trail from White Oak Flats. Always sad to see the destruction and vandalism of the property and great memories.

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