{"id":3748,"date":"2025-12-26T21:00:59","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T01:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3748"},"modified":"2025-11-25T12:05:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T16:05:45","slug":"the-lost-town-of-mortimer-north-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3748","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Town of Mortimer, North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A once thriving lumber and mill town in the mountains of western North Carolina, Mortimer rose fast, becoming prosperous\u2026until it was washed away twice in massive flooding events.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after a 1916 wildfire burned large tracts of timberland in the mountains,\u00a0 two hurricanes struck the area back to back, causing historic floods not seen again in the area until Helene in 2024, nearly wiping out the town.<\/p>\n<p>The people of Mortimer made a comeback driven by textile work and the CCC, until a final blow came from another flood in 1940. Today little remains of Mortimer along Wilson Creek.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mortimer\u2019s story is another one of the Stories of Appalachia.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to subscribe if you haven\u2019t done so already; you\u2019ll find us wherever you get your favorite podcasts.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_15\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3748-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68741846\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68741846\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68741846\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68741846\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3748-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68741846\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A once thriving lumber and mill town in the mountains of western North Carolina, Mortimer rose fast, becoming prosperous\u2026until it was washed away twice in massive flooding events. Shortly after a 1916 wildfire burned large tracts of timberland in the mountains,\u00a0 two hurricanes struck the area back to back, causing historic floods not seen again [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23,93,31,33,97],"tags":[1453,104,1457,1454,1452,1450,1449,1455,1446,1456,622,1451,1448,1447],"class_list":["post-3748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disasters","category-interesting-places","category-the-1910s","category-the-1940s","category-weather","tag-1940-flood","tag-appalachian-history","tag-caldwell-county","tag-carolina-and-northwestern-railway","tag-ccc","tag-ghost-towns","tag-great-flood-of-1916","tag-lumber-towns","tag-mortimer","tag-mountain-floods","tag-north-carolina","tag-pisgah-national-forest","tag-ritter-lumber-company","tag-wilson-creek"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-Ys","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3749,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3748\/revisions\/3749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}