West Jefferson, NC

West Jefferson sits in an Appalachian valley between Mount Jefferson and Paddy Mountain, a small Ashe County town whose 2020 population was 1,279. It was incorporated in 1909 and once had the only cheese factory in the southeastern United States, a detail that still tells you something about the town's old working economy. The resort reputation came later, as visitors and retirees began treating the high country as a destination. West Jefferson has always had one foot in the mountain landscape and another in the industries that made a town there possible.

That working side is still visible. GE Aerospace operates a major plant in town; the company announced a $53 million expansion in 2025, adding more than 35,000 square feet and 44 jobs to a facility that already employed more than 270 people. West Jefferson Dr Pepper adds a stranger local detail: the bottler uses cane sugar in its non-diet drinks and is one of only two non-Pepsi franchises allowed to produce Mountain Dew. So the local scoop is cheese, aircraft engines, and a soda exception, all in the same mountain valley. It is a small resort town, but its character comes from manufacturing as much as scenery.