It is hard to let unanswered questions go for very long. As an update to last week’s post “North Carolina Room and a Recent Donation Gets Media Coverage,” the obvious question facing all of us was “Who was the photographer?” A school librarian from Albany, New York, Lucy Menard, had sent us a 1904 photo album
LIBRARY AWARDED FEDERAL GRANT The Buncombe County Public Library’s North Carolina Room has been awarded a $66,750 grant to be used for scanning the Six Associate’s Architectural Drawings Collection. This will allow us to better serve patrons of the library and the community at large. LSTA funds awarded by the State Library of North Carolina are
Several years ago I stumbled upon an amazing find and immediately shelled out cash to purchase it. Here is a truncated scan of the collaged cover of a Christmas scrapbook. Between 1950 and 1958 an anonymous crafter lovingly documented the Christmas season in Asheville. Bound with recycled shoelaces and festooned with metallic pipe cleaner curlicues; the pages are brown paper bags, holiday wrapping paper,
The Emporium Department Store Fire The current photo exhibit in Pack Memorial Library’s North Carolina Room pictures some of the city’s most noteworthy fires. Among them is the Emporium Department Store fire of July 25, 1923. The Emporium fire was, according to a later, undated Asheville Citizen article, “one of the most spectacular if not
A friend and loyal supporter of our HeardTell blog sent last week’s post on the Pack Square weather kiosk to Frank Quinlan, a retired professor from UNCA’s Atmospheric Sciences Department. Mr. Quinlan, who was one of several people writing us back saying that the kiosk was new information to them, also sent us back one of our photographs in the
One day recently, a traveler from Switzerland came into Pack Memorial Library to talk about Asheville’s weather kiosk. Weather kiosk? Sure enough, the gentleman pulled out several photos of Pack Square that he’d printed from the library’s web site and there it was. As familiar as those photos were, I had never noticed the blocky
The audit of the Asheville Police Department’s Evidence Room: When news broke in early 2011 that a significant number of sensitive items — drugs, guns and money — was missing from the Asheville Police Department’s Evidence Room, a public-records battle began. Now, more than three years later, that struggle has been resolved. A full copy
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,