Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Highlands, NC

Highlands is an incorporated town sitting on a plateau in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Macon County, mostly within the Nantahala National Forest, with a small portion extending into Jackson County.

Highlands was founded in 1875 by Kansas developers Samuel Truman Kelsey and Clinton Carter Hutchinson, who, according to legend, drew lines on a map from Chicago to Savannah and from New Orleans to New York and chose the point where the lines crossed.

The founders bought 839 acres in February 1875, and the settlement was first called Kelsey's Plateau before being renamed Highlands for its lofty elevation.

Highlands has an average elevation of about 4,118 feet, making it one of the highest incorporated towns east of the Mississippi River.

Highlands straddles the Eastern Continental Divide, and its altitude gives it cool summers and abundant rainfall averaging more than 87 inches a year.

Highlands was a summer resort from its very beginning, settled as a haven for Southerners escaping the lowland summer heat, and by 1883 nearly 300 settlers from the eastern states were living there.

The 2020 census counted 1,072 permanent residents in Highlands, up from 924 in 2010.

Although Highlands has only about a thousand year-round residents, its population swells to between 10,000 and 15,000 during the spring-to-fall season.

Highlands covers about 6.1 square miles of land at a population density of roughly 175 people per square mile.

The Highlands area outside the town limits is home to roughly 3,000 year-round residents on the wider Highlands Plateau.