Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail Commemorative Motor Route

Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail's Commemorative Motor Route retraces a 1780 Revolutionary War march across western North Carolina toward Kings Mountain. Patriot militia known as the 'Overmountain Men' crossed the Appalachians from present-day Tennessee and Virginia to surprise and defeat Loyalist forces at the Battle of Kings Mountain, a campaign historians consider a turning point in the war's Southern theater. Since much of the original 330-mile route through Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina crosses private land or has vanished under development, the Commemorative Motor Route follows existing state highways marked with the trail's distinctive logo, covering roughly 225 miles within North Carolina alone, through towns including Morganton and Elkin and past Lake James State Park. Congress designated the full route a National Historic Trail in 1980, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter exactly two centuries after the militia's march, making it the first National Historic Trail established in the eastern United States. Drivers can supplement the route with more than 80 miles of dedicated walking trail where it survives intact.

• Commemorative Motor Route on NC highways
• ~225 miles in North Carolina
• 1780 Overmountain Men march
• Battle of Kings Mountain
• designated 1980, first eastern National Historic Trail
• Lake James State Park, Morganton, Elkin