 Named after the Ritter Lumber Company, which used the town as a railroad hub in the early 1900s.Other important North Shore communities included Bushnell at the confluence of the Tuckasegee River and Little Tennessee River, Wayside at the mouth of Calhoun Creek, and Fontana at the mouth of Eagle Creek.The Cherokee were the first known permanent inhabitants of the Hazel Creek valley, although the valley was much more sparsely-populated than the Overhill settlements further down the Little Tennessee valley.