If you grew up in Buncombe County any time after 1960, chances are you took a trip either with your school or your parents to the Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site located in the Reems Creek community near Weaverville. The reconstruction of a late 18th, early 19th century mountain plantation has hosted thousands
Montford is one of Buncombe County’s most iconic historic neighborhoods. In this installment of 52 Weeks, 52 Communities, we could take almost any angle on Montford; there is just so much to talk about. So instead of trying to pick just one thesis, I decided that this would be a great opportunity to put together
Pleasant Alexander Calhoun lived most of his adult life in a place Horace Kephart described as the “back of beyond.” Until the beginning of the 20th century, it was so remote that few outsiders had ever ventured into the isolated community nestled deep in the Great Smoky Mountains. It’s not probable that he thought his final years would be spent in an
Disclaimer: This installment of 52 Weeks, 52 Communities has no ill intent. Indeed, I mean to shame no one in my assertions, only educate. However, be warned, I may air some grievances. Dear readers, there are a few things that send unpleasant chills down my spine. For my husband, it’s the sound of a fork scraping
If you live in Asheville, you’ve probably taken a drive through it many times. Say, you’re headed to the Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary for a Sunday stroll after a brunch downtown. It is a section of Merrimon Avenue that begins descending in elevation starting somewhere about the time you reach Brookstone Church (formerly Merrimon Ave.
For this week’s edition of 52 Weeks, 52 Communities we’re reaching back into the HeardTell archives for two posts about Grace, a community in North Asheville. These posts were originally authored by NC Room Staff Zoe Rhine and Ione Whitlock. Grace, A Community that got absorbed by an avenue A View of Grace, Then and
Hiding away in the Five Points neighborhood of Asheville are some of Asheville’s stories of philanthropy and heroism. The neighborhood, though it was officially established and named only fairly recently, was developed much earlier. Most of the extant homes were constructed in the late 19th and early 20th century, the bulk of them in the
In the late 1920’s a group of Asheville investors, boosters, and executives (including Fred Seely, son in law of the late E.W Grove) hatched a plan to lure one of the world’s most progressive burgeoning industries to western North Carolina. Established in the early 1920s after the discovery of the scientific process for creating “artificial