Gillespie Gap

A Daring Choice to Split the Force

Location


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Coordinates: 35.8538, -82.0511.

Type: Stop
Tour: Overmountain
County: McDowell

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You will park in the lot of the Museum of North Carolina Minerals, which sits by Gillespie Gap.

From the lot you can see the entire tour location. The trail taken by the Patriots is inaccessible to most people with mobility issues.

Overmountain Men Arrive

Walk to the stone monument on the far side of the museum. Read the monument if you like. For unknown reasons it also mentions a 1761 battle at Etchoe Pass, but that site is near the Georgia border!

Look to your left into the meadow.

A trail going into trees from a cleared area
(AmRevNC photograph)

More than 800 “Overmountain Men,” as they are now called, passed through here on Friday, September 29, 1780. These we