Webster and the Tuckasegee River Corridor

Webster was laid out as Jackson County's seat soon after the county formed in 1851 and incorporated in 1859, named for Daniel Webster. It held the courthouse until 1913, when the railroad's arrival a few miles north tipped the vote to Sylva, and has stayed small since: 372 residents in 2020 on one square mile at about 2,130 feet, between Sylva and Cullowhee on NC 107 and NC 116. Six properties are on the National Register, including the Rock Schoolhouse and the 1887 Methodist and 1900 Baptist churches.

The river is the reason to look here. The Tuckasegee, about 60 miles long from its headwaters in southern Jackson County to Fontana Lake, runs just south of town, and its most intact prehistoric stone fish weir, older than the Cherokee, survives nearby. From the NC 107 bridge down to Savannah Creek the river is delayed-harvest trout water and a designated Mountain Heritage Trout Water, within one of five Tuckasegee stops on the Western North Carolina Fly Fishing Trail. Property along the corridor runs from bottomland farms with river frontage to view homes on the ridges; upriver, the valley continues through Cullowhee to Tuckasegee and Duke Energy's East Fork lakes.