Carolina Curious: What's The Highest Geographical Point In High Point?

For this quick edition of Carolina Curious, we go to the city of High Point. 

Listener Paul Siceloff asked WFDD to find the city's highest geographical point. 

City spokesperson Ryan Ferguson found the answer using the city's mapping software. And it turns out, the spot isn't all that high – it's a flat field at 1417 Tower Avenue, southwest of the city's center. It sits about 960 feet above sea level. For context, Grandfather Mountain is more than six times that.

“We have a television tower that's up here that is private property," says Ferguson. "But it is basically just a field.”

Ferguson says at first, he thought the city's peak was the train station downtown. In 1849, an engineer for the North Carolina railroad drove a stake into the ground to mark the highest point on the line between Charlotte and Goldsboro – that's how the city got its name. 

Since then though, High Point's borders have expanded. 

“We're a city that continues to grow,” says Ferguson. “So as we grow and annex, this might not be the highest point of elevation here in, say, a couple of years if we annex new areas.”

Ferguson says the Tower Avenue field was annexed by the city in the 1970s. It's about 20 feet higher than High Point's train station.