Needle Eye Rock

Legend of Ridges Mountain

According to legend, in the mid 1700's a trading post was established on top of Ridges Mountain by Godfrey Ridge, thereby establishing its name. An Indian trading path followed the inland waterways from the Atlantic Ocean, northwest through the Uwharrie Mountains, and crossed the Uwharrie River, Ridges Mountain, and Carraway Creek a few miles west of Asheboro, North Carolina. Carraway is traditionally thought to derive from the word "Keyauwee," the name of the local Indian tribe. There are extensive bottomlands, or savannas, along Carraway Creek enclosed by impressive mountains (Carraway, Gavlin, Shepherd, Hoover Hill, and Ridges Mountains). On top of Ridges Mountain, west of Carraway Creek, is a strange rock formation. Hugh boulders are strewn about over many acres, providing convenient rock shelters or ancient remnants of a cave, which may confirm John Lawson’s early report of a mountain-top cave that 100 men could sit in to dine.

The mystery of the cave, the wildlife, and the native people who lived in the area was enough to stir the soul of any explorer. In 1701 John Lawson, an early English explorer and Indian trader, was the first to record his impressions of the Uwharries, its wildlife, and its people.

The most exhaustive search by those who visited the mountain over the years has failed to establish the location of the cave. The mystery of the cave that Lawson described is kept alive by an early 1884 map of Randolph County, by Trinity College professor and engineer Dr. L. Johnson, showing Ridges Mountain with a notation “cave underneath.”