Regions of Barrow County

Barrow County takes up around 900 square miles, being around 30 miles across and roughly circular. It is ringed on all sides by the Appalachian Mountains, with several small peaks within the bounds of the County itself. There are four incorporated townships in the County—Barrow, Hobb’s Corners, Dusk Hills, and Crescent—as well as over a dozen unincorporated hamlets and villages with less than a hundred people in each of them. Barrow County’s official population is around 20,000, but there hasn’t been a real census in decades.

Barrow County can be roughly divided into five areas—the regions around the four major townships, plus the uninhabited northern and eastern Low Woods. The basic character of these regions can be thought of as follows:

Barrow: Southeastern portion of the county. The county seat. Home of the sheriff’s department, the county clerk, and not much else. Lots of dying businesses and abandoned houses. The mayor is the popular Nicholas Calendar, but it’s well known that the Kingsley family basically runs Barrow.

Hobb’s Corners: Central part of the county. The most populous town in the county, with roughly half of Barrow County’s population living there. Slightly better off than Barrow, but still dying. Used to be a major coal town, now surviving on the bounty from the fishery and hydroelectric dam. Home to the Hobb family, town founders and vocal opponents of the Kingsleys.

Dusk Hills Reservation: Southwestern corner of the county. Home to the Dusk Hills band of Native Americans. The town of Dusk Hills is largely in ruins after a series of battles with a supremacist militia a generation ago. The major local industry is the casino, a caricature of Native American life owned and operated by Salvador Kingsley, forcing the locals to choose between starving or participating in their own oppression.

Crescent: The northwest part of the county. By far the wealthiest town in Barrow County, thanks to the Raven River Winery and the continuing prosperity of the local lumber mills. The Crescovich family owns the Crescent Mountain Lumber Company and has an uneasy relationship with both the Hobbs and the Kingsleys.

Low Woods: The eastern and northern portion of the county. Home only to a few lonely homesteads. Most of the Low Woods is part of a national nature preserve, making both logging and hunting illegal—though most people in Barrow wind up doing at least some of the latter, depending on the time of year. The northernmost part of the region is home to the Amber Caves National Park, a long-closed tourist attraction.