Linville is an unincorporated Blue Ridge Mountains resort town established circa 1888.
Linville as described in the 1970s [1]
Linville is an unincorporated resort town tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Avery County. There is a small year-round population, but the character of the town is determined by the seasonal population, principally from the cities of Wilmington and Charlotte, N. C.; Nashville, Tennessee; and Birmingham, Alabama, which vacations in Linville from June to September. A vast amount of acreage, about 16,000 acres, that included the tiny village, then named Clay, and extended east over Grandfather Mountain, was purchased in 1888 by a group of investors headed by the MacRae family of Wilmington with the intention of developing the area for industrial purposes. However, the group was soon entranced by the natural beauty of the area, and the decision was made to develop it as a resort in which the natural resources could be preserved. During an initial period of expansion that lasted until around 1920 the unique character of the construction of the town itself was established by the erection of resort cottages covered in chestnut-bark shingles.
Nearby Towns: Newland Town •