First things first! We’ve got a new Instagram account! Follow us at @buncombespeccoll from now on for fun tidbits from the collection and updates on events. (For a while now we’ve been unable to access certain features using our old account, hence the shift. But hey, who doesn’t love a fresh start?) As we enter
If you’ve spent any time with me, you already know I’m “aggressively enthusiastic” about the past. The period between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in Western North Carolina is particularly fascinating to me. It’s an era when Buncombe County was rapidly transforming: Buncombe County folk were carving roads through mountains, new communities were taking root,
Growing up in Buncombe County, I was introduced to Thomas Wolfe at an early age. I remember no fewer than three field trips to the “Old Kentucky Home” throughout my school years, and it was instilled in me and my classmates that the Look Homeward, Angel author was our claim to literary fame. No one else was ever mentioned, so it seemed to me that Wolfe
Postcards are defined by their small size, but recently, some have taken on a new scale. New interior wall murals at Pack Memorial Library bring these pocket-sized scenes to larger-than-life dimensions. Buncombe County Special Collections holds several thousand postcards depicting scenes of Asheville, Buncombe County, and Western North Carolina. For muralist Max Dowdle, they provided
Welcome to the third installment of our series of blog posts about our region’s weirdest history! If you missed the first two, check out Part I (about some persistent local myths) and Part II (strange animal stories). This series is inspired in part by storyteller and author Liz Z. Pardue, who will be at Pack
On March 31, storyteller and author Liz Z. Pardue presents Keep NC Weird! The Strange & Macabre History of Our State at Pack Memorial Library, a one-hour journey through the strangest history, most eccentric characters, and darkest folklore of the Old North State. In anticipation, we’re rifling through some of the weird tales we happen to know