Happy Birthday, White Pine!
White Pine celebrated its 100th birthday on Saturday, August 8, 2015. Officials closed down the streets in the city proper for a festival that boasted music, food, arts and crafts, antique cars and, of course, the history of White Pine. It was a party fit for a centennial celebration, with residents and visitors coming out to show their appreciation of the town that just wouldn’t give up.
Though the area known as White Pine was first settled in the late 1700s, it didn’t really find its feet as a proper town for about 100 years. While it was originally the area’s position between the French Broad River and Long Creek that brought settlers, it was the coming of the railway that actually put White Pine on the map. In 1893 it was incorporated for the first time but a dozen short years later a fire decimated the town area. For some towns that would have been the end of the line, but not for White Pine. The people rallied and in 1915 it was incorporated for the second time and it is that last incorporation that brought the people to the streets on Saturday.
