Alfred and Flora Bowditch and their five children, circa 1935. Buncombe County Special Collections, F048-DSa, courtesy Ella Mae Bowditch Waters. A portrait like this one suggests a fascinating story, and in this case we were fortunate to receive the photograph from someone who could satisfy our curiosity about this family. The young woman on the
Currently on view in the North Carolina Room William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), was one of the earliest and most important American photographers. From 1869 to 1878 he was the official photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories. Jackson’s images of the Rocky Mountains, especially of the Yellowstone region, taken in 1871 and widely published,
My, how good the Nichols Building looks now that it has a little breathing room! [This is a follow-up to a previous post about the razing of the Blomberg Garage which sat just to the side in this photo.] The Nichols Building was built by Archibald Nichols (1875-1937) former secretary for eight years of the
As I began to create a record for this postcard purchased recently on eBay, I got that funny sensation that comes when one of the photos begins to speak. The Craftsman Style bungalow was built around 1907 and featured the cedar shingle exterior popular until the 1930’s. I know from my own home how hard the big
TODAY: YESTERDAY: FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO: Harry’s Cadillac Pontiac Company, seen here on the right, is first listed at 68 Haywood Street in the 1938 Asheville City Directory. Harry Blomberg had opened Harry’s Motor Inns across the street in 1930, shown in this later view as Worth’s Fashion Mart, the present-day site of Pack Memorial Library. Mr. Blomberg
The photographs of Exum Clement Stafford that we used in our online exhibit (see Last Week’s Post) came from several sources, and in some cases we did not have access to originals. We were scanning copies, and although the reproductions are remarkably good, we did not have access to any information that might have been written
“Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When? O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.” Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel Recently a man renovating a house on East Chestnut Street found a box of letters and pictures,
