John C. Campbell Folk School

Each year, more than 800 classes full of visitors learn something new from the oldest folk school in America. When John Campbell's widow started a small school in the westernmost part of North Carolina in 1925, she had no idea the lessons being taught would be thriving nearly 100 years later. Her goal was to use education to preserve and share the crafts, techniques and tools that the people of North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains used in everyday life. 

The John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown continues to seek those goals today. The school offers adults weeklong and weekend classes year-round in traditional and contemporary craft, art, music, dance, cooking, gardening, nature studies, photography and writing. From blacksmithing to calligraphy, the school offers nearly 50 different categories of classes that are all based on non-competitive learning (there are no credits and no grades). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the school has been named as a "Best of the Road" destination by Rand McNally Atlas and as one of the "100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life" by National Geographic. The school's 300-acre campus straddles Cherokee County and Clay County and includes a history center that features visual art, fine and folk craft, music, historic film footage and photographs.