The community, originally called Elk Cross Roads, was settled in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The community was a rural outpost in the backcountry of the Blue Ridge Mountains populated by farmers. The first church, South Fork Baptist Church, was established in 1833, and a Post Office was established in 1837. Blackburn's Chapel, a Methodist church, was founded at Elk Cross Roads in 1850. The community was large enough to be noted on North Carolina maps by the 1850s. Several dry goods stores were operating at Elk Cross Roads before the Civil War.During the latter half of the 19th century, the community's commerce grew with large scale timber harvesting and also mining of mica and copper. By the 1890s, Todd was larger than the nearby town of Boone in Watauga County.