Nicknamed “the coolest corner of North Carolina,” Ashe is the state’s most northwestern county located entirely in the Appalachian Mountain region with an average elevation of 3,000 feet. The county was formed in 1799 out of Wilkes and is named in honor of Samuel Ashe, the first Speaker of the NC Senate, a longstanding superior court judge and the state’s ninth governor. The county seat of Jefferson, chartered by the General Assembly in 1803, was the first town in the entire country to be named after Thomas Jefferson.