The story goes like this: The North Carolina Room’s very own Friends of the North Carolina Room board member, Jon Elliston, published an article Thursday January 15th on Carolina Public Press about a 1904 photograph album that was sent to the NC Room by a woman in Albany, New York. She had found the album in a box of Albany
Asheville once had a flourishing system of parochial primary and secondary schools. Catholic schools reached their peak in both number of schools and enrollment in the 1950’s and 1960’s and then went into a quick retreat in the 1970’s. Declines in religious vocations greatly reduced the availability of nuns and priests to staff the schools
Currently on view in the entrance case at Pack Memorial Library you will discover a variety of vintage Christmas cards from individuals and businesses in Asheville. On view on the lower level is a recently acquired photo album made by photographer William Barnhill as a Christmas gift to his sister Laura Barnhill who was visiting with him in
Asheville’s First Motor Mile was downtown’s Coxe Avenue. A new motor mile has emerged in recent years along Brevard Road in West Asheville, but in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the peak years of the American automobile industry and the years remembered for the hype of the annual model change, Coxe Avenue was the place for checking
We have been posting on this blog about Tourists’ Camps and Tourists’ Courts. In case I dismissed Tourist Homes too quickly, I decided to make amends. They existed longer than I first thought, and probably did a lot to help with boarding for tourists. And besides that, they most likely provided a very good income for
Fearing that tourist courts were fast disappearing, Library Director Ed Sheary and North Carolina Room staff Ann Wright, Zoe Rhine, and Peggy Gardner made a Tourist Court Expedition in August 2000. Our aim was to document as many tourist courts and their signage as we could in the day. Major roads coming into Asheville were surveyed for remaining motor or
Who were the early tourist pioneers and where did they stay? Before there were tourists’ courts, there were automobile tourists’ camps. They were most typically, in this area, cabins or shacks. “Tourists’ Camps” found its own subject listing in the business section of the Asheville city directories in 1936, which listed three camps:”Babblin Brook” on the Weaverville
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
. . . Continuing with the life of Irma Henderson Smathers . . . After Dr. Irma Henderson settled into her own office, she needed, like all physicians, some medical malpractice insurance. William E. Smathers of Autry-Smathers Insurance Agency sold her the coverage. They married the following year. She liked to say of her malpractice policy and her insurance