The current City of Mount Airy operates under a charter dating back to 1889. The community sits at the foot of the Blue Ridge, in the drainage of the Ararat River, and grew up around granite quarrying and textiles in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is nationally identified with the actor Andy Griffith, who grew up here and used its landmarks and cadence as the raw material for the fictional Mayberry.
Detailed historical content on this page is drawn from the City's own History materials — additional narrative added here at launch will be verified line-by-line against those sources.