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“…entering Oakboro from the north, the school grounds are on the left before reaching the town’s business district. I believe, without realizing it, everyday citizens unceremoniously come face to face with the origin of the Big Lick after passing a small diner just beyond the tractor supply store on the left. Tammy’s Oakboro Restaurant, the place I am thinking about appears on 2022 Google Maps within a small business complex where I believe the back side of an idled advertisement sign should exclaim, “You have arrived!” or maybe “This really is it!”

 The water trickling from a nearby culvert is Alison Branch, which empties into Stony Run before flowing into Big Bear Creek and Long Creek on its way to the Rocky River. Alison Branch? This is it?

 Standing quietly at the iron safety railing overlooking the waters below, one might think of Alison Whitley, for whom the stream, once called Lick Branch, is named. Let your mind wander as you contemplate the past, imagining Alison working his 136 acres during the Civil War. Alison died before the nearby town of Big Lick burned in 1898, and after his death, one might have witnessed the funeral and heard the somber cries from the family cemetery just a short distance downstream.”

Beyond its academy and the whistle-stop town that sprang up nearby, the Big Lick crossroads was significant beyond common belief. Big Lick was my father’s home, the place I chose to launch a formal exploration of Stanly County through the mapping of its land. I will be calling on you for help, but for now, having studied land records for nearly 30 years, I believe it is critical to correct mistaken beliefs and secure a broadly held consensus beyond the folksy traditions rooted in broken history.

Not at all a fictional tale of what life may have been like, this deep dive into land and other period documents chronicles the walks of many people and their spread into and through the Carolina backcountry. Most of us know the families of Cagle, Whitley, Austin, McLester, Hathcock, Kennedy, and many more.  However, others, such as Whitfield, Roach, Narron, Harrington, Barringer, and Phillips, are equally significant to our beginnings. This writing reaches back to the days of Indigenous Peoples and applies to counties up and down the Rocky River. Yes, there was the Great Wagon Road, but there is much more.

Did you know that one man and his associates once privately owned more than 75% of Stanly County? The University of North Carolina owes its existence in part to funding realized from the sale of confiscated land purchased by our ancestors. There was ye Great Lick, and what about the family of Elvis Aaron Presley, who lived at a place they called “the Bigg Lick.”

This book is printed in color to enhance its numerous maps and graphics. I believe the message within is a must-have for people who own or live on land in the county as well as for others who descend from families who once called Stanly County home. A detailed guide of sorts, Finding Big Lick should make a good Christmas gift for anyone sincerely interested in the history of Stanly County and the surrounding Rocky River region.