BIG LICK, N.C. -- Yes, Roanoke, there is a Big Lick.

Three and a half hours away, tucked deep down in North Carolina like a penny in a pocket, the remains of a once-thriving 19th- century community linger into the present. What's left of Big Lick, N.C., still fulfills life's basic needs -- it has a store, a church and a barbershop -- and its colorful history includes cameo appearances by Jesse James and a witch. The village's inhabitants proudly and sometimes fiercely proclaim life is better here than in Oakboro, which annexed Big Lick five years ago.

They also wonder why anyone would change a name like Big Lick.

But the Big Lick that sprouted back in 1879 along the gurgling springs is as much a memory as another Big Lick you've heard about. That would be the one that 125 years ago welcomed its newfound status as a magic railroad hub by changing its name from the backwatery Big Lick to the uptown Roanoke.

Big Lick, N.C., meanwhile, stood up to modern tastes -- and to the railroad men, as well -- and kept its name.

"To me, it is a debt owed to keep the name," said Maurice Huneycutt, one of the proud Big Lickers still smarting over debt owed in extra taxes following Oakboro's annexation ("It costs me $700 to live in Oakboro," he said). His family goes all the way back to Big Lick's beginnings, when stores, churches, houses, hotels, a post office, an academy and a casketmaker clustered along the Carolina crossroads like the deer attracted by the salty creekbanks that inspired the town's name.

He collects items with the name Big Lick, such as license plates and the six-pointed tin star his grandfather Adam Luther Huneycutt wore when he was Big Lick's last chief of police. The younger Huneycutt doesn't think his ancestor dealt with many crime waves. "Unless somebody tried to steal a horse," he said.

According to local lore, the town saw at least one notable bandit pass through. Jesse James was said to be friends with a local man and he spent some time on a nearby farm when he wasn't holding up trains. The local paper recently reported that he might have stayed in an old house on the main road.

Another legend maintains that the town was haunted by a witch, so don't get the idea that life in Big Lick was all Sunday school and pickle barrels.

Big Lick, N.C., and the late Big Lick, Va., share a few historic similarities. Both were named because of salt licks. Both cropped up along crossroads where numerous travelers passed. Both were irrevocably shaped by the railroad. That is where the stories diverge.

Whereas the movers and shakers of Big Lick, Va., persuaded the officials of the Shenandoah Railroad to bring their line to their community, the leaders of Big Lick, N.C., convinced the railroad that it should steer clear. In 1913, the railroad settled on a spot south of Big Lick, spawning the town of Oakboro.

By 1919, Big Lick, N.C., surrendered its charter.

What's left of the original town lies mostly along Big Lick Road and its spurs. Rambling old houses are bedecked with new siding, vinyl windows and enclosed porches. Cotton fields hibernate, bolls still hanging on stalks like Father Time's long beard, and cedars line the main road where somebody stole the green Big Lick sign a while back.

"Growing up, Big Lick was a place that used to be," said Claudette Love, a local historian who operates the Oakboro Regional Museum of History. She and Jane Barnhardt conducted a recent tour of Big Lick mostly by pointing out where things once were.

"Go around this corner ... there used to be a Methodist church here," Barnhardt notes as Love drives along the inappropriately named Swift Road. Her grandparents lived in Big Lick, and she visited their farm as a girl.

"Big Lick has a uniqueness about it," she said. "My husband was flying back from California and told another man he was from Charlotte. The man asked, 'Do you know Big Lick?' "

Ah, Charlotte. Only 45 minutes away, its suburban wave laps at Big Lick's edges. Little towns nearby like Locust and Midland are already swamped with shopping centers and fast-food restaurants.

Buford Whitley owned a barbershop in Charlotte for 18 years before selling his business and opening a shop in Big Lick with one chair, no waiting. He still barbers, when he's not puttering with his classic automobiles or ambling about the fields where his granddaughter's horse, T.J., plays.

The shop sits catty-corner to the Fast Stop No. 5, a friendly, smoky (this is North Carolina, remember) convenience store. The barbershop's decor is country living -- that is, a Dolly Parton poster is tacked to the wall and models of classic cars sit on the shelves. Dark and gray hairs carpet the floor under the chair, where Whitley took his seat.

With perfectly coiffed silver hair that becomes a veteran barber, a plug of Morgan tobacco in his cheek, Whitley talked of Big Lick's charms and laid-back lifestyle.

"A lot of people have moved here," he said. "You don't have the hassle you have in Charlotte. A lady stopped in one time and said, 'What do y'all do around here?' I said, 'Anything we want to.' "

He recalled listening to a country station out of a Charlotte a few years ago when the disc jockey asked listeners to answer the trivia question of how Big Lick got its name.

Somebody called in and claimed that long ago, two guys were building a barn and trying to come up with a name for the new town they were starting. The first guy had his favorite, the second guy had other ideas, so the men got into a fight. The first guy picked up a two-by-four and cracked the second guy square on the noggin.

"Now that's a big lick," he said.