Spruce Pine is the largest town in Mitchell County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,175 at the 2010 census. Spruce Pine was founded in 1907 when the Clinchfield Railroad made its way up the North Toe River from Erwin, Tennessee. The town was originally centered around a tavern operated by Isaac English, located on an old roadwa…
Spruce Pine is the largest town in Mitchell County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,175 at the 2010 census. Spruce Pine was founded in 1907 when the Clinchfield Railroad made its way up the North Toe River from Erwin, Tennessee. The town was originally centered around a tavern operated by Isaac English, located on an old roadway that ran from Cranberry, North Carolina, down to Marion, NC. The Old English Inn still stands at its original location near the center of town. In 1923, after an African American escaped convict allegedly raped a local white resident, a large armed white mob rounded up scores of Black men who were laboring on a road construction project and forced them to leave town on boxcars. North Carolina Governor Cameron Morrison deployed National Guard troops to Spruce Pine so that the workers could return and complete the road.
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