In 1979 a small group of Highlands residents began to meet because they shared a concern for the history of the town. The area was changing rapidly and historic structures were disappearing. These concerned citizens formed the Highlands Historical Preservation Society, Inc., a non-profit organization, which unfortunately fell into inactivity, but in 1999 it was reactivated as the Highlands Historical Society, Inc., for the same reasons it was originally formed. By 2000 the new society had appropriately bought for its home the oldest house still standing in Highlands and by 2002 was honored by the North Carolina Society of Historians for its progress over three short years—from when it had no building to call its own, no funds in the treasury, and no archives to speak of—to what it stands for today: an active society intent on preserving and promoting the heritage of Highlands.

creation of the historic village

The Highlands Historical Society's Historic Village is located at 524 N. 4th Street in Highlands, North Carolina. It is composed of the House-Trapier-Wright Home ("the Prince House"), the Highlands Historical Museum and Archives, and Bug Hill Cottage. The House-Trapier-Wright Home is the oldest existing house in Highlands, built in 1877 by millwright Arthur House, and serves as a living history museum.

The Highlands Historical Museum was originally constructed in 1915 on Main Street to house the Hudson Library, one of the oldest libraries in the State, and was moved in 2002 to the south side of the Village to serve the community as a state-of-the-art museum and archives.

The Bug Hill Cottage was one of 60 open-air cubicles built in 1908 at today's Recreation Park for patients under the care of Dr. Mary E. Lapham, whose TB sanatorium was one of the first in North Carolina. Although moved to Chestnut Street when the sanatorium ("Bug Hill") burned in 1918, it was returned to its original site in 2006 to memorialize Dr. Lapham's role as a devoted savior of many Highlanders from the most virulent and dreaded disease of early twentieth-century America.