Tourism is the number one industry of the North Carolina Mountains. The folksy culture, the native crafts, and the opportunity to escape the oppressive heat of the rest of the state drew the first tourists. The tourist potential of the Blue Ridge Mountains is still amazingly open, and continuously being developed. The combination of inexpensive land, talented local artisans preserving folk crafts, and superb skiing and outdoor sports soon produced a thriving resort industry here. Some of the most beautiful miles of the Appalachian Trail , the winding series of trails that spans the mountains from Maine to Georgia, are here in North Carolina, as is the famous Blue Ridge Parkway , a highway built for no less noble purpose than to provide a place for people to drive and look at the pretty scenery.
Agriculture still plays a role here.
Logging and tree farming are also major agricultural industries. The region's place as a crossroads between the East Coast and the Mississippi Valley, and between the subtropical lands of Georgia and Florida and the Ohio Valley, make it a natural agricultural transshipment point, and produce from all of these regions is available for sale from hundreds of shops along the highways. One of the oldest agricultural practices, that of turning a few acres of corn into moonshine, or corn whisky, has actually nearly died out. The Appalachians attracted early European settlers to the New World, many seeking their fortunes in the form of gold nuggets. The Appalachians were particularly attractive to the thousands of Scots in exile who settled in North Carolina after the disastrous attempt of Bonnie Prince Charlie to claim his Scottish throne.