The City of KIngs Mountain: The Historical City with a Misplaced Identity

Fought on October 7th, 1780, on a ridgetop in the backcountry of South Carolina, the battle of Kings Mountain turned the tide of the Revolutionary War. A century later, the City of Kings Mountain was founded along the Charlotte-Atlanta Railroad, nine miles north of the battlefield, in North Carolina. From its creation, the city has laid claim to the battlefield’s heritage as its own. Beginning in 1880, six years after its founding, the city used the history of the battle to create a shared history for its community by establishing a commemoration committee and organizing the centennial anniversary celebration of the battle. Over the next fifty years, the city’s involvement in the commemorations and memorials held at the battlefield and in the City of Kings Mountain reinforced the use of the history of the battle as a replacement for the city’s unique past of mining and textiles.