Mount Sterling (Great Smoky Mountains)

Geologically, Mount Sterling consists mainly of Precambrian metamorphic sandstone of the Ocoee Supergroup, formed nearly a billion years ago from ancient ocean sediments.

During the U.S. Civil War, Cataloochee and the remote valleys at the base of Mount Sterling became popular hideouts for deserters, and both Union and Confederate detachments consistently made raids into the area to find them.

One local legend relates an incident in which Confederate Captain Albert Teague swept through Cataloochee and arrested three alleged Union sympathizers.

[5] Around 1903, the Cataloochee Lumber Company established the village of Crestmont at the northwest base of Mount Sterling to house a labor force needed to log the Big Creek Valley and operate a timber mill.

In the late 1920s, the Carolina Power and Light Company established the community of Waterville at the mountain's northern base, near the confluence of Big Creek and the Pigeon River.

While vestiges of Waterville survived, Crestmont was absorbed into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1930s and converted into what is now the Big Creek Campground.