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hi, i live in texas but am retiring to clay county nc in 2010. we've bought 5 acres and will build next year. love the mountains but am not familiar too much with the area. will be living halfway between hiawassee, georgia and hayesville, nc. what can you tell me about it? is there a lot of crime? i see a lot of people being very critical of asheville. what about murphy, franklin, highlands, etc?
thank you so much. i haven't met many people yet but have liked the ones i've met so far.
I don't live there so I can't tell you too much personally, but I do want to say how jealous I am! I've lived in Sylva for the last 10 years, but I only discovered Hayesville/Hiwassee this month! It is GORGEOUS down there. I almost hate to say so here, like I'd rather keep it a secret. I love all the open country, farmland, and livestock with the mountains as a backdrop. The ideal setup as far as I can imagine. The folks I've met have all been very nice, and are pretty opposite, politically and culturally, from what you'd find closer to Asheville. I really love Sylva, it's a great balance between home-grown mountain folks, college kids, and professionals, but if I could move to Hayesville I would for the farmland and horse potential. The only concern I might have would be extremely conservative/fundamental religion being the only choice available. Now, I don't know that to be the case, it's just a consideration for any area I live in. You're so lucky!
hi, thanks for your reply. we don't know for sure about just how conservative the area is (this is a concern for me as well; i am a moderate to liberal politically and a more live and let live kind of religious person) but i have really liked the people i have met so far. i grew up in savannah and then lived in denver for 18 years, so texas was quite a shock. nothing in clay county can be any worse than texas.
i loved sylva and was just there in june meeting with a builder. lovely area. hiawassee as well looks like it could be wonderful. good barbecue and a movie theater: what more could we want?
I grew up in Haywood county, but spent many childhood summers at lake Chatuge. Clay county is one of the few places that still offers true solitude in such a rapidly growing region (same goes for the rest of extreme western NC). The population of the 5 counties that make up the extreme western portion (Cherokee, Graham, Clay, Macon and Swain counties) is at about 85,000 people, compare that to nearly half a million people in the Asheville metro area.
Violent crime is minimal to nonexistent, I remember meth use being a bit of a problem among younger residents, which is the case with comparable rural areas. Most folks are nothing but nice and welcoming, and I think you'll adjust quite easily. However in relation with the areas reputation as a haven for crazy far right-wing nutjobs, there are several sects of the Christian Idenity (an extreme right-wing racist group) in operation in Clay, Graham and Cherokee counties. Remember the Eric Rudolph manhunt? He was involved with some of it's members and shared in many of the movement's viewpoints. In case you didn't know some of the search for him was carried out in Clay county, but that's about the extent of the often overblown right-wing fundamentalism in the area. While I do not condone a worldview like that, it's not as big of a problem as it's made out to be by the media.
Hope this has been of some help to you, and I hope you find what you're looking for when you retire. Best of luck.
I've spent three yrs here in this area and I can't wait to leave. We thought we would enjoy the solitude and quiet and we do, but there is no shopping to speak of, no entertainment and we found the religion in this area to be smothering. A lot of control and deep, mountain mentality religious thinking permeates this place. Yes, most are nice people, but I found I have nothing in common with them. Sorry for the negativity, but this has been my experience. Good luck.
Janice, the "religion thing" is only as smothering as you allow it to be. I am a very liberal, open-minded person married to a right wing Christian conservative and we mainly ignore the churches and church-goers around here. We live in Cherokee County less than four miles from Clay County. I thought I would miss the shopping but I couldn't care less about malls on the days I do go to Asheville or Chattanooga. I did miss being near a major airport for many years but now I have gotten past that also. It's great to live somewhere where folks do not lock their doors and keep their keys in the ignition of their vehicles. The only crime around here is drug use. Seems to me there's a lot among younger people and alcoholism in older folks.
hi, you answered me on the other forum as well i really appreciate the reply. i thought i was all set to move and then have spotted many negatives on these forums lately. my cousin just moved from rome georgia back to savannah and said on facebook she was so thrilled to be back in savannah after years of "right wing nuts" in north georgia. oh yay! i live right now in a county of 3,900,000 with lots of crime and lots of traffic jams, and yes, the shopping is good, but can a person shop every day? i was not sure about making such a drastic move, though, even when we were getting ready to close on our lot, and then the man who drilled our well, such a nice man, started making conversation about the war in iraq and how it needed to end, and i realized i was really jumping to conclusions about people without knowing what i was talking about. he and my husband were talking well production and my oilfield husband was talking barrels per minute instead of gallons per minute and the well guy was so funny about it. i really want to see the licklog players, and find good restaurants in murphy, and go to hiawassee for the mountain festival, and explore what seems to be a lovely, peaceful area. and if there's a lot of alcoholism, then there must be a lot of meetings too. our family has one person 22 years sober.
i figure if i need the city again i can go to chattanooga or atlanta or greenville or asheville, and then come home to my own piece of heaven. where did you move from? janice
I haven't seen the Licklog players!!! But there are some great restaurants around now. BTW, Clay County just had a referendum and they are no longer going to be "dry". They will get some great restaurants soon, I hope. I love the "quaint" atmosphere but when we first came here in 1996 we'd have to go elsewhere to go eat but now there are lots of good eating places. I love Shoebooties in Murphy, Murphy's Pub and next week Gaston's is opening downtown Murphy. The population in Clay county is less than 10K. It's 24K in Cherokee County. We moved here from Huntsville, Alabama (one of my favorite towns in the world; long story why we didn't stay there - to make it short mother died and Dad wanted to move "back home" ). We lived in New Orleans for 15 years and I liked it there also - so you know if I can move from there to here and adapt to the religious nuts, then you can too, LOL. I'm 62 this month so lots of things don't bother me anymore.
you are doing my heart good! thank you so much for all your positive thoughts. you are right----new orleans to alabama to north carolina----you can adapt to all and be happy, and colorado to texas to north carolina can work for me. (p.s. i'm 57, happy birthday to you!) i am so eager to explore the whole area. i heard about the referendum....did they do the same in towns county in georgia? i heard about all the alcohol revenue going somewhere else and it was about time it stayed home.
again, thanks for all your positive comments. especially now when the heat in texas is so bad and it's been this bad since the first of june, i am anxious for some cool mountain air.
Would love to hear more about your findings...I too am moving to the Murphy area soon. I need an ISP for my home office, so if you hear anything about that sort of thing I would be interested! Thanks to all who were posititve, it's good to hear that life is good and you're right - who can shop everyday! I can go get in the traffic once a month and be perfectly happy! From the foothills of NC to Florida East coast - I can't wait to get back to the seasons!
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Clay County Very Conservative?
i really appreciate the reply. i thought i was all set to move and then have spotted many negatives on these forums lately. my cousin just moved from rome georgia back to savannah and said on facebook she was so thrilled to be back in savannah after years of "right wing nuts" in north georgia. oh yay! i live right now in a county of 3,900,000 with lots of crime and lots of traffic jams, and yes, the shopping is good, but can a person shop every day? i was not sure about making such a drastic move, though, even when we were getting ready to close on our lot, and then the man who drilled our well, such a nice man, started making conversation about the war in iraq and how it needed to end, and i realized i was really jumping to conclusions about people without knowing what i was talking about. he and my husband were talking well production and my oilfield husband was talking barrels per minute instead of gallons per minute and the well guy was so funny about it. i really want to see the licklog players, and find good restaurants in murphy, and go to hiawassee for the mountain festival, and explore what seems to be a lovely, peaceful area. and if there's a lot of alcoholism, then there must be a lot of meetings too. our family has one person 22 years sober. 
