Appalachian Folklore & Myths Series – Boojum and Hootin Annie in the Balsam Mountains: Gemstones, Moonshine Jugs, and Haywood County Folklore
In the high country of western North Carolina, between the tourist glow of Waynesville and the deep coves that run toward the Smokies, there is a stretch of ridgeline where stories and promotion have tangled together for more than a century. Locals call it the Balsam Mountains or simply “the Balsams.” Tucked into that landscape is Eaglenest Mountain, once crowned by a luxury hotel and now remembered for a different resident altogether.
Ask around long enough in Haywood County and someone will eventually mention the Boojum. They will talk about a tall, shaggy creature who haunts rocky cliffs and laurel thickets, hoards gemstones in moonshine jugs, and fell in love with a mountain girl whose lonely cries still echo through the woods as “Hootin’ Annie.”
Like many Appalachian legends, Boojum’s story is not a relic from the colonial frontier. It is a twentieth century tale that grew alongside summer resorts, ghost story collections, and a modern appetite for local color. Tracing it through the sources shows how a supposedly ancient monster turns out to be a very modern product of tourism, oral storytelling, and regional pride.
Eaglenest Mountain, Eagle’s Nest Hotel, and a changing ridge
Eaglenest Mountain stands along the southern edge of the Balsam range in Haywood County, North Carolina. At the turn of the twentieth century it was not a wilderness peak but an address. Around 1900 a Waynesville businessman named S. C. Satterthwait built the Eagle’s Nest Hotel near the summit as a high altitude resort for visitors who wanted cool air, long views, and a sense of mountain adventure without sacrificing dining rooms or verandas. Contemporary descriptions and later local histories describe the hotel as an impressive structure, reachable by a wagon road that climbed from Waynesville to the crest. The building burned in 1918, leaving only ruins and photographs, but it had already done its work in reshaping how outsiders saw the mountain.
Resort culture brought more than money to Eaglenest. It brought a listening audience. Guests came looking for stories that matched the scenery, and hotel owners and guides were happy to oblige. Over time, the mountain acquired tales of strange lights, ghosts, and at least one hairy creature that moved through the rocks below the hotel. That setting, with paying guests and a constant churn of visitors from lowland cities, is the first solid context we have for Boojum.
Piecing Boojum together from early printed stories
Unlike some Appalachian legends that can be tracked back through court records or nineteenth century newspapers, Boojum appears in print relatively late. One thread runs through Haywood County oral tradition, later summarized in tourism materials and local ghost story books. Another runs through a handful of twentieth century writers who recorded or reimagined the story for new audiences.
A widely cited retelling comes from North Carolina Ghosts, a site that draws on regional folklore. Their version places Boojum squarely on Eaglenest Mountain, describes him as eight feet tall and covered in shaggy gray hair “except for his human face,” and connects him directly to the Eagle’s Nest Hotel. Guests at the turn of the century, the story claims, heard about a strange creature who lived nearby, collected gemstones, and hid them in discarded liquor jugs buried in secret caves.
Haywood County tourism writers echo those details. A feature on Visit Haywood’s official site calls Boojum “a mixture of both man and beast,” standing about eight feet tall with thick gray hair and a human like face, haunting rocky outcrops at twilight and moaning from deep in the woods. That article links his legend explicitly to the Balsam Mountains, naming nearby peaks such as Cold Mountain, Shining Rock, Richland Balsam, and Black Balsam Knob as the landscape he roams.
Additional layers come from ghost story collections such as Randy Russell and Janet Barnett’s “Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina,” which include a chapter titled “Bigfoot of the Balsams.” Their treatment presents Boojum as a local Bigfoot figure tied to the Balsam range rather than to a single hotel, emphasizing his wildness and his hoarded treasure.
Taken together, these sources do not give us a neatly dated first sighting. Instead they show a story already in circulation by the mid to late twentieth century, rooted in Haywood County place names, resort history, and a sense that the Balsams still have corners where a strange creature might plausibly sleep undisturbed.
Gemstones, moonshine jugs, and a hoarder in the rocks
Almost every Boojum story agrees on two of his defining traits. He is a hoarder of precious stones, and he hides them in a way that reflects mountain life as much as fairy tale treasure.
North Carolina’s mountains have long been known for rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other gemstones that can be found in stream beds and outcrops. Tourism literature about Boojum plays on that geology, describing him as endlessly searching for “rubies, amethysts, emeralds, and sapphires” and stashing them in caves throughout the Balsams.
Instead of locked chests, Boojum uses stoneware or glass jugs that once held liquor. In some retellings he fills discarded moonshine jugs with his gems, tops them off with “pert’nin juice” or home distilled liquor, and buries them. The trick, as one Haywood County version explains, is that any self respecting mountaineer who stumbles on such a jug will drink it dry before thinking to pour it out. By the time the finder passes out in the woods, Boojum has slipped back in, rescued his jewels, and left the would be thief with nothing but a hangover.
It is a comic image, but it fits its setting. Haywood County has a history of both legal and illegal liquor making, and the use of jugs and “pert’nin juice” grounds the legend in a specific culture where moonshine is not just a plot device but a familiar part of life. Boojum’s hoards are not abstract dragon piles. They are buried in the same stone jars human neighbors already use to store their own valuables and their own vice.
Hootin’ Annie and the sound on the ridge
The other enduring element in Boojum lore is the figure of Hootin’ Annie. Where many Sasquatch stories are studiously lonely, Boojum’s tale is a love story.
In most versions, a young woman named Annie goes to bathe in a secluded mountain stream. Such scenes make sense in an early twentieth century mountain community where private bathrooms were luxuries and creeks served as everyday wash places. One day Annie feels someone watching her. Instead of fleeing, she looks up to see the Boojum peering from behind the laurel. Rather than reacting in terror, she is struck by the sadness in his eyes and chooses to stay with him in his caves among the Balsams.
Their life together is not simple. Boojum keeps slipping away on long gemstone hunts, and Annie is left alone in the high woods. To find each other again, they develop a call and response. Annie’s cry is described as somewhere between a wild animal’s screech and the hoot of an owl. Boojum answers with his own moan, and they move toward one another through the trees, following sound instead of sight until they meet.
Some storytellers link this call to the southern word “hootenanny,” used for a lively gathering or party. Haywood tourism materials explicitly claim that the term comes from Annie’s hoots, transforming what might have been a frightening sound for tourists into the origin of a cheerful mountain word. Linguists usually trace “hootenanny” to early twentieth century slang rather than to a single legend, but the Boojum connection shows how easily folk etymologies bind language to local stories.
In any case, Hootin’ Annie’s cry plays a practical role in the folklore. It turns unexplained shrieks in the night, the calls of owls, or the distant voices of people on neighboring ridges into part of the Boojum story. If you are deep in the Balsams and hear a noise you cannot place, the legend offers one answer: Annie is calling for her wandering lover.
Tourism, ghost story collections, and a modern monster
Boojum’s rise from local tale to widely shared folklore mirrors the path taken by many Appalachian legends in the twentieth and twenty first centuries.
First, the story circulates orally. Haywood County residents share tales of a shaggy man beast and his gemstone hoards, sometimes linking him to ruins on Eaglenest Mountain, sometimes to other Balsam peaks. Those stories are eventually collected or paraphrased by writers like Randy Russell and Janet Barnett for books on western North Carolina ghost tales, and by John Parris in his columns about mountain life.
Next, tourism agencies adopt the legend as a way to brand the landscape. Visit Haywood’s blog presents Boojum as a regional cryptid, complete with commissioned artwork and references to local breweries. Another Haywood feature on Halloween activities encourages visitors to “discover the legend of the Boojum,” pairing the story with corn mazes and scenic hikes.
At the same time, businesses borrow Boojum’s name. Waynesville’s Boojum Brewing Company, for example, uses the character on murals and merchandise. One brewery mural shows a clawed hand reaching across a mountain backdrop, folding the creature into downtown art.
Digital media have amplified all of this. Blog posts from oral historians recount Boojum as “the Bigfoot of North Carolina,” connecting him to the Eagle’s Nest Hotel and weaving in hints of haunted ruins and mysterious fires. Online ghost story sites like North Carolina Ghosts retell Boojum and Hootin’ Annie for a statewide audience. Social media posts treat him as one entry in lists of “Appalachian cryptids,” alongside better known figures like the Flatwoods Monster and Mothman.
By the time Boojum appears on posters and “Legends of the National Parks” style artwork, the story has completed a full loop. A creature once used to entertain hotel guests ends up helping to sell beer, festivals, and tourism packages, even as local people continue to tell and tweak the legend.
What we do and do not know about Boojum’s roots
For all his recent visibility, Boojum remains elusive in the historical record. There are no clear nineteenth century references to a creature by that name in Haywood County newspapers or in published Cherokee mythology. Instead, the best documented parts of the legend surface in mid to late twentieth century ghost story collections, tourism copy, and oral history projects.
That does not mean the story was invented out of thin air in the 1960s or 1970s. It does suggest that Boojum is part of a broader pattern in which mountain communities and promoters shaped existing motifs into marketable local legends. The ingredients were already there:
Creekside bathing spots where privacy was never guaranteed.
Black bear and human sightings that could turn any shadow into something more.
Real gemstone hunting in western North Carolina streams.
Moonshine culture with its jugs, caves, and secret caches.
A turn of the century resort on Eaglenest Mountain looking for a signature ghost or monster to set it apart from other high country hotels.
Folklorists sometimes talk about “place making,” the process by which stories attach themselves to specific landscapes. Boojum is a clear case. The Balsams would be scenic without him, but his legend gives them a personality that belongs to Haywood County alone.
Why Boojum still matters in Haywood County
Today, hikers in the Balsams are more likely to meet trail runners and photographers than a shaggy treasure hoarder. Yet Boojum still matters for what he reveals about how Haywood County and western North Carolina tell their own stories.
He personifies the sense that these mountains hold secret pockets where modern life has not fully intruded. He links local geology and industry to folklore, turning the region’s gemstone history and moonshine culture into narrative fuel. Through Hootin’ Annie, he folds women’s labor and vulnerability at the creek into a tale of agency and choice, however mythologized.
Most of all, Boojum shows how Appalachian folklore continues to evolve. A creature who probably began as a bit of resort era storytelling now appears in art, craft beer branding, travel blogs, and social media threads. Each retelling emphasizes different themes loneliness and love, greed and thrift, fear and curiosity but they all keep the Balsam Mountains alive in the regional imagination.
On a quiet evening above Waynesville, when the spruce and fir stand dark against the sky and creek sounds drift up from the coves, it is easy to see why. A ridge with one more story is a ridge that people keep visiting, debating, and looking toward, listening in case they hear a distant, unanswered hoot.
Sources & Further Reading
McCormick, Carol Ann. “Lichen Updates: New Name and New County Records.” North Carolina Botanical Garden, April 4, 2023. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://ncbg.unc.edu/2023/04/04/lichen-updates-new-name-and-new-county-records/
McKay, Alex. “Eagles Nest Hotel Fire Remembered at the Tragedy’s Centennial.” The Mountaineer, April 23, 2018. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://www.themountaineer.com/news/eagles-nest-hotel-fire-remembered-at-the-tragedys-centennial/article_644caa6c-44d7-11e8-8b20-3f41a4dd889c.html
Russell, Randy, and Janet Barnett. Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina. Winston-Salem, NC: J.F. Blair, 1988. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://books.google.com/books/about/Mountain_Ghost_Stories_and_Curious_Tales.html?id=W9FhDM3fViMC
North Carolina Ghosts. “The Story of Boojum and Hootin’ Annie.” North Carolina Ghosts, n.d. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://northcarolinaghosts.com/mountains/boojum-and-hooten-annie/
Haywood County Tourism Development Authority. “The Legend of the Balsam Mountains Boojum.” Visit Haywood, n.d. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://visithaywood.com/blog/the-legend-of-the-boojum/
Colmel. “Another Appalachian Tale – Boojum: The Mystery on Eagle’s Nest Mountain.” colmel.wordpress.com, September 12, 2011. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://colmel.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/another-appalachian-tale-boojum-the-mystery-on-eagles-nest-mountain/
Ghosts of Balsam. “Boojum, the Bigfoot of North Carolina.” Ghosts of Balsam, n.d. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://www.ghostsofbalsam.com/boojum-the-bigfoot-of-north-carolina/
Where the Dogwood Blooms. “The Legend of Boojum and Hootenanny.” Where the Dogwood Blooms, n.d. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://wherethedogwoodblooms.com/the-legend-of-boojum-and-hootenanny/
Blue Ridge Tales. “The Boojum: Appalachia’s Cryptid Casanova.” Blue Ridge Tales, n.d. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://blueridgetales.com/the-boojum-appalachias-cryptid-casanova/
Boojum Brewing Company. “Boojum Brewing.” Boojum Brewing Company, n.d. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://www.boojumbrewing.com/
Haywood County Tourism Development Authority. “Boojum Brewery Taproom.” Visit Haywood, n.d. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://visithaywood.com/listings/boojum-brewing-company/
Smoky Mountain Stays. “A Complete Guide to Boojum Brewing Company in Waynesville, NC.” Smoky Mountain Stays, July 28, 2025. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://smokymountainstays.com/post/boojum-brewing
Author Note: I wrote this piece to track Boojum from a resort era ghost story to a full fledged Haywood County cryptid. I hope it helps readers see how folklore, tourism, and place making work together in one corner of the North Carolina mountains.