We’ve been through this before. Yes, there is a community in North Carolina named Meat Camp. It’s up in the mountains just north of Boone. It was supposedly named for an old primitive meat packing house. It once won third place in the Rabbit Hole’s “Best Places for an Ass Whuppin’” contest.

But! Lindsey Sullivan, who actually lives in Meat Camp, wanted to know what the hell is up with this old-ass sign:

That sign is on Highway 194, just north of Boone’s city limits. Lindsey had some very specific questions about it:

“Maybe too niche of a request but my curiosity won't let it go,” Lindsey says. No! Nothing’s too niche! You’re requesting help from a guy who once had to track down the person who made a custom North Carolina Highway Patrol hat once worn by Steven Spielberg during the filming of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” in 1988. Niche is my ish.

Let’s start by reading, literally, the fine print here. The tiny text on the sign around the image of an idealized small mountain community is: “Northwest North Carolina Development Association, Inc.” That was once an organization consisting of 11 mountain and foothills counties up in the northern part of the state, stretching from Caldwell County in the west to Stokes and Forsyth Counties in the east. Businessmen and community leaders formed it in 1954 to, basically, help take care of themselves. “The Northwest is not, as some folks seem to think, a land paved with the gold of the bright tobacco leaf where Winston-Salem’s 100 mythical millionaires frolic,” stated an article in The State magazine in 1955. The area’s small tobacco farms had, in fact, been hurt by lower demand, and most were in places too small to meaningfully advocate for themselves. So those 11 counties formed an association to focus on four things: farming, industry, community, and tourism. Right away, the association helped farmers get more tobacco seeds and fertilizer, successfully marketed local eggs, lured factories and tourists, and got small towns to give themselves a facelift by cleaning up buildings, or creating community centers or volunteer fire departments.

So, how did the association entice those small communities to start making positive changes? It gave out awards. The prize money was small—$300 for first place—but the competition was fierce. Once a year, nearly every community, no matter how small, submitted an entry stating what it had done over the last few months. The top prize winners in each county would get a little cash and a big road sign.

Meat Camp got its award in March 1975, which means its sign has probably been in place for about 50 years. So, what did it do?

It’s hard, exactly, to tell. But newspaper articles about the award mentioned the Meat Camp Volunteer Fire Department. That organization was founded in 1971 to serve some 600 homes in the mountains and valleys north of Boone. Along the way, it raised money to buy both equipment like trucks and makeshift ambulances, but also built community tennis courts and a swimming pool. The VFD helped create summer programs for kids. All of it was paid for through fundraisers like ham dinners and turkeys shoots. Over the first two years, community members pledged more than $30,000. “A community is what its citizens want it to be,” the VFD’s president said at its annual meeting in 1973.

A year later, Meat Camp won the All Northwest Community award. And the sign. Which is now more than a half-century old.

A lot has happened since then! For one thing, the VFD moved into new digs, and isn’t reliant on fundraisers anymore: People in the area pay a fire district tax, which helped pay for a new fire station in 2013 and a substation that opened last year. Both are now well-staffed and help lower peoples’ insurance rates (I’m telling you, every story is about insurance!). Most recently, the new building served as a community center after Hurricane Helene, when many people lost power and access to their homes after roads were washed out.

Also! The Northwest North Carolina Development Association is long since dead. After 40 years, the organization dissolved itself in 1994, mostly because it had become a victim of its own success. Many of the counties it had once helped had successfully started to advocate for themselves, and the state department of commerce had also stepped in.

The All Northwest Community signs have also faded away. From my research, they used to exist at the edges of Hudson, King, Bethlehem, and other small towns, but seem to have mostly vanished. My best guess is that they were once mainstays on small-town welcome signs that featured all sorts of local civic club placards, like the Rotary, Civitan Club, Lions Club, and others. Since many of those welcome signs have been replaced, those little placards are no longer there.

So! We know there’s at least one All Northwest Community sign left. Maybe there are more! Or not! If you’re complaining that I don’t send you on enough scavenger hunts, then please, feel free to report back if you find one. Your prize will be… pride in your community.

For what it’s worth, while many of you seem to be fascinated by the name “Meat Camp,” this is the first time I’ve actually heard from someone who lives there. So, what’s it like? Pretty rural, but amazingly close-knit! “Our neighbor across the street, a cattle farmer and landscaper, single-handedly rebuilt our neighborhood despite his property having had arguably the most damage,” Lindsey says. “Good people, lots of small community stories, and your fair share of weird shit.” Sounds like an All Northwest Community to me.