Maggie Valley is a town in Haywood County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,687 at the 2020 census. A popular tourist destination, it is home to Cataloochee Ski Area and the former Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park. Maggie Valley is part of the Asheville metropolitan area.
The community gets its name from Maggie Mae Setzer; her father John "Uncle Jack" Sidney Setzer founded the area's first post office and named it after one of his daughters.
History
Before European colonization, what is now Maggie Valley was inhabited by the Cherokee people and other indigenous peoples for thousands of years. The Cherokee in western North Carolina are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a federally recognized tribe.
When John Sidney Setzer's daughter Maggie was ten years old, he asked the Postmaster General for permission to establish a post office for the area. He had to prove the need for one, and once he did, he submitted four names: Cora, Mettie and Maggie (his three daughters), and Jonathan (the name of the creek running through the community). The name Maggie was selected and the post office opened May 10, 1904. Maggie was thirteen years old at the time and she helped run the post office until she married Ira Plyant and moved away in 1907.
When area businesses began promoting the area as a tourist destination in 1949, they encouraged the use of the name "Maggie Valley". Ghost Town in the Sky, helped establish the name by calling itself "Ghost Town in Maggie Valley".
Geography
Maggie Valley is in west-central Haywood County. U.S. Route 19 is the main road through the town, leading east to Asheville and west over Soco Gap to Cherokee.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town has an area of , all land.
Wildlife
thumb|An elk in a Maggie Valley neighborhood.
Elk were copious throughout the United States, but numbers decreased in the mid-19th century because of overhunting and habitat loss. In 2001, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the National Park Service and other partners joined to restore wild elk to the Great Smoky Mountains in the Cataloochee Valley near Maggie Valley. Most elk are found in Cataloochee Valley, which is a perfect viewing area in the southeastern section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But the elk have been known to wander out of the park and walk toward Maggie Valley. There are an estimated 200 elk in the Maggie Valley area currently.
Black bears are occasionally seen in and around Maggie Valley. During winter, the black bears are inactive for a short amount of time and exhibit some physiological responses to low food storage and temperatures. But a result of their brief hibernation is that there are more bear sightings. This is risky because they can be looking for food in neighborhoods or killed on roads. Locals strongly suggest never approaching a bear to photograph it, or leaving food or garbage out, and taking in any bird feeders that are not monitored (especially at night).
Demographics
2020 census
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right"
|+Maggie Valley racial composition
!scope="col"| Race
!scope="col"| Number
!scope="col"| Percentage
|-
!scope="row"| White (non-Hispanic)
| 1,475
| 87.43%
|-
!scope="row"| Black or African American (non-Hispanic)
| 23
| 1.36%
|-
!scope="row"| Native American
| 15
| 0.89%
|-
!scope="row"| Asian
| 30
| 1.78%
|-
!scope="row"| Other/Mixed
| 69
| 4.09%
|-
!scope="row"| Hispanic or Latino
| 75
| 4.45%
|}
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 1,687 people, 833 households, and 562 families residing in the town.
2000 census
As of the census
- Moonshiner Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton.