Mortimer, North Carolina is a ghost town in Wilson Creek Township, Caldwell County, in the northwestern part of the state.
Once a mill town with a population of around 800, it was founded in 1904 when the Ritter Lumber Company bought the land where Mortimer was built to house its workers. Mortimer had a company store, a blacksmith's shop, a church, a school, a hotel, a movie theater and several houses, some of which were used for boarding. [1] [2] It is said that Theodore Roosevelt stayed in the town's Lauren Inn. [3] In 1916, a fire burned from Grandfather Mountain to Wilson Creek, soon followed by a flood, after which, the town was abandoned a year later. The Union Mills Company then briefly revitalized Mortimer in 1922. During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps established a camp in Mortimer and had repaired most of the buildings damaged by the 1916 floods. [4] The town flooded again in 1940 and was subsequently abandoned. Several remains are existent today, including machinery from the mill and the foundations of several buildings. [5]
35°59′07″N81°45′40″W / 35.98528°N 81.76111°W