Story by Harry Crowther
Oct. 18, 2025, was a kind of equinox in Watauga County. Three major events took place on the same Saturday.
Appalachian State University celebrated homecoming as the Mountaineers hosted Coastal Carolina at Kidd Brewer Stadium. Woolly worms raced at the 48th annual Woolly Worm Festival in Beech Mountain. And in the historic Valle Crucis was the Valle Country Fair.
People flocked to the High Country to take in the festivities and enjoy the peak of fall color. The day marked 386 days of recovery. It highlighted the area’s resilience, grit and togetherness following Hurricane Helene last September.
“There’s a ton of hope,” said Danielle Stewart, co-owner of the flower shop the Mustard Seed Market.
“There’s a ton of fresh liveliness. We have the ASU crowd, the college crowd. We have our locals that live here year-round. We have our seasonal folks that have summer homes. And then we have tourists. We see all of them. What we’ve noticed is that there is a stronger influx of tourists coming in and wanting to pour into the community.”
Western North Carolina is built on small businesses — and business owners like Stewart. They rely on fall tourism to support themselves and, in turn, the community.
The Boone Area Chamber of Commerce released its second-quarter Economic Indicators report in July. The chamber estimates that 67 percent of the area’s small businesses are tied to tourism. The report said sales tax collections showed a sizable increase over 2024. With people returning to open arms, small business owners are optimistic about a strong fall season.
“Tourism in the High Country is clearly on the mend and improving with seasonal traffic,” wrote economist Harry Davis of Appalachian State in the report. “All of those factors together bode well for the economic growth and vitality of the region.”
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The mood in Boone last October was far more somber.
In the aftermath of Helene, the Woolly Worm Festival and Valle Country Fair were canceled. Major roadways were blocked, and Appalachian State University sent students home. The community needed time to assess its circumstances and needs. The messaging off the mountains was for tourists to stay away.
Chamber of Commerce CEO David Jackson had difficult conversations with business owners.
“The thing that was uplifting about those conversations,” Jackson said, “is that they quickly turned to, ‘All right, we can’t do business as usual, what can we do?’”
In the face of disaster, the community banded together. Regardless of differences, everyone stopped to help one another with small businesses on the front lines. They have worked through challenges to support the community and recover over the past year.
The day before Helene, Stewart was celebrating her husband’s birthday with family and friends. Rain fell outside. Everyone knew a storm was coming. But no one knew exactly what to expect.
“The next morning, we woke up to devastation everywhere,” Stewart said. “I couldn’t get into the business to check on it. Couldn’t get in touch with half of our family.”
Stewart moved from Charlotte to Boone and opened the Mustard Seed with her husband in 1992. The Mustard Seed Market sits on a knoll above the middle fork of the New River. The Stewarts completed a project to protect their property from erosion in April of 2024.
On the day Helene struck, the river rose 23 feet and flooded the shop’s lower parking lot. Stewart’s husband and son rushed to save their equipment and trucks before floodwaters could wash them away. The storm severely damaged the Mustard Seed’s infrastructure.
Like many others, the business was in a position of strength, prepared to crush the fall. Helene hit at the worst possible time in late September. It changed everything.
“Everybody was closed down for a month,” Stewart said. “It was our biggest season. It was October tourists. It was a huge season for this area. We had beautiful mums and pansies and fall plants that are gorgeous. They’re just sitting there.”
Stewart organized free flats of plants for people to pick up and bring to neighbors. She hoped to spread joy and hope in the face of devastation. Her husband and son worked tirelessly in the community. They waded through rivers to find people who needed help.
“My son went to a lady’s house to drop off some food,” Stewart said. “She had no water, no electricity, no phone, and she refused the food. She said that there was a family up the road that needed it more. Those stories were hundreds by the day. So that shows the grit of the true old mountain folks, which are amazing.”
Mindy Coatney and her husband also leveraged their small businesses to help the community. Coatney grew up in Boone and opened Stick Boy Bread Company in 2001 with her husband. Since then, the Coatneys have expanded Stick Boy and opened other small businesses, including Booneshine Brewing Company and Hatchet Coffee.
When Helene struck, the Stick Boy bakehouse lost power for two weeks. The Coatneys discovered, however, that a random power source still supplied their ovens. The electrician couldn’t explain it. They baked bread in the dark. Coatney called it a “God thing.”
The Coatneys set up a table in front of their bakery to give away pastries and coffee. They also donated bread and made soup for shelter volunteers.
“Any time a need arose that we felt we could fill, we would just do it,” Coatney said. “Whether it was financially supported by outside people or just us, we felt a calling to help in any way we could.”
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Over the past year, Jackson and the chamber have worked to help the small business community recover. He has communicated with local, state and federal officials to allocate resources the businesses need.
Jackson said much of the funding still hasn’t been directed to the places of need because of political logjams. Until those problems are resolved, Helene advocacy and recovery will be a part of the chamber’s daily operation. Issues related to Helene are among the top priorities in the chamber’s five-year strategic plan. Jackson believes Helene will remain a subject of discussion beyond the five years.
“It’s set a lot of people back and is still setting a lot of people back,” Coatney said. “You don’t think about it as much now, but then you run into somebody, and they’re like, ‘We’re still waiting on our bridge to be replaced.’”
While the storm’s effects still linger, Boone’s small businesses are slowly emerging from the hole Helene left. This fall already feels much different than last. Days like Oct. 18 — filled with palpable energy in the crisp mountain air — stand as symbols of recovery.
Symbols of the community’s strength and unity.
“The sun comes up here every day, and every time it does, it’s gorgeous,” Jackson said. “I think people see that as an opportunity to move on, to move to the next thing.
“This is an area that relies upon all of us working hard together. I think there’s a real drive to get us back to a place where — I don’t think it will ever really be normal again — but where we can feel like we can accept what’s happened and be better for it.”
