People and places of Buncombe County

Seven Sisters and Walkertown Ridge

Mary McPhail Standaert
Special to The Valley Echo

The four-mile ridge of the Seven Sisters frames Montreat’s western boundary. Residents of the North Fork Valley bounded on the east by these same mountains, call them Walkertown Ridge, after early settlers. The designated name on U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps is “Middle Mountain”.

The origin of the name “Seven Sisters” is uncertain.  A descendant of R.O. Alexander, a Presbyterian from Charlotte and a real estate developer in Montreat and Black Mountain in 1907, relates that R.O. had 11 children, 7 daughters (Seven Sisters) and 4 sons (The Four Brothers).

The view from the porch inside the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly, circa 1915, includes an early use of the name “Seven Sisters” to describe the ridge that frames Montreat’s western boundary. Courtesy of the Mary and Joe Standaert Postcard Collection