Western North Carolina Historical Association | Your first stop for history in Asheville, NC, since 1952

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Upcoming Events

Join us virtually and in-person for exciting educational events exploring the history of Western North Carolina.

EVENT CALENDAR

March 30

Thursday, March 30

April 22

Saturday, April 22

May 9

Tuesday, May 9

OUR PROGRAMS

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Museum

Our museum is temporarily closed for interior renovations. Please visit our virtual exhibits by clicking here.

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Exhibits

Visit our virtual exhibits, 1918 vs. 2020, Hillbillyland, Deep Dive into Archives, and Douglas Ellington. Check back regularly as we make more content available digitally.

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Special Events

We offer a variety of events throughout the year. Join us for LitCafe, History Hour, Outdoor Experiences, our Intro to WNC History Lecture Series, and more!

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Awards

We have annually presented the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary and Outstanding Achievement awards since 1955.

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Youth Programs

Area educators can check out one of our many traveling trunks or bring their students to our museum for guided tours and lessons.

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Collections

Our archival and object collections rotate on and off display in our period rooms and changing exhibits.

WNC History: Inside the 1948 Highland Hospital fire that killed Zelda Fitzgerald

“There are six places in Oak Lodge (one of the Highland Hospital patient buildings) I have picked out that could be set (on) fire. I have thought about it so much, I am afraid of what I might do and I want you to lock me up.” Willie Mae Hall, night supervisor at the...

Carl Sandburg, an iconic American, gets a reappraisal

Carl Sandburg, the prolific and widely-admired poet, Lincoln biographer, reporter, singer, folklorist, critic, and champion of the working class, has largely fallen from public or scholarly attention over the decades since his death. Western North Carolina audiences...

Close up photograph of a green floral paper dress with a Waste Basket Boutique label.

WNC History: Waste Basket Boutique paper dresses were made in Asheville by Mars

“I tried one out and wore it three days, cleaned the house, mopped, waxed the floors, washed five girls’ heads, bathed the dogs and did everything else necessary in a house with five bedrooms, two baths, ten people and two dogs and it was still in one piece,” wrote a...

WNC History: The ghost at Inn Around the Corner

“Are you aware you have a spirit at this inn?” Nancy Schnepp, the then-proprietor of Black Mountain’s Inn Around the Corner bed-and-breakfast, remembered a guest saying to her at breakfast one morning in the late 1990s. Surprised and having never experienced the...

WNC History: A ghost in Black Mountain

Ghost stories give us glimpses of our past. Often in these stories, real people from the past inhabit present-day spaces, living on in legend as ghosts long after their demise. One such ghost is Petunia, who is said to haunt Abbott Hall at Blue Ridge Assembly in Black...

1882 Cowee Tunnel Disaster heroism, mistaken identity

“To shorten a bend in the Tuckasegee River just west of Dillsboro, the (Western North Carolina Railroad) planned Cowee Tunnel. Each day hundreds of convicts, camped along the east bank of the stream, were ferried across to the site of the cutting. ... On that fateful...

MLK’s trips to Black Mountain & Montreat

“I had the privilege of meeting Martin Luther King (in 1964),” Black Mountain resident Inez Daughtery recalled in an early 2000s interview. “And he talked to me at length about the things he was going through and the things he was doing. And he told me … ‘Mrs....

Who was the dead swindler on a pedestal in an Asheville funeral home?

On Friday, Oct. 28, 1904, an Englishman “of refinement and culture” died in a boarding house on Montford Avenue in Asheville. His death certificate, noting a death date of Nov. 10, 1902, was not completed until May 18, 1910. The local health official noted in 1910...

WNC History: The Revolutionary journeys of 2 young WNC women

The Glades as it appeared c1950 after many additions. The section on the left is the original home. “Disguised as an old woman, and riding horseback, she went from her home … near the Catawba River (in North Carolina) to the Fort at Ninety-Six, South Carolina....

WNC History: Story behind the accused murderer in 1936 Battery Park Hotel homicide

“I don’t know whether my brother Tom will get here tomorrow for my body or not. Tonight’s his night off,” 22-year-old Martin Moore, a tall and lanky Black man, mumbled to the cadre of reporters stationed outside the bars of his cell in Raleigh’s Central Prison. It was...

November 3, 1868: Asheville Election Riot

On this day in WNC history: Amid the charged climate of the Reconstruction period, the Asheville Election Riot occurred on this day in 1868. After mounting tensions between Black and white voters erupted in a flurry of gunfire, one Black man—James Smith—soon died...

October 17, 1941: Marian Anderson preforms in Asheville

Before an audience of 3,400 in the new City Auditorium, renowned singer Marian Anderson made her first performance in Asheville in 1941. Anderson, one of the most famous contralto performers and African American musicians of her time, sold out the venue and an...

October 3, 1880: First Passenger Train to Asheville

On this day in WNC history: On October 3, 1880, the first passenger rail service arrived in Asheville at a small station along modern Depot Street. The engineer and passengers were greeted by clamoring onlookers. During the mid-1800s, train service becoming...

October 2, 1866: 2nd Freedmen’s Convention

On this day in WNC history: Convening in the St. Paul AME Church in Raleigh, African American representatives from seven WNC counties joined the second Freedmen’s Convention on this day in 1866. In the 1865 Freedmen’s Convention almost all representatives came from...

September 26, 1923: Spruce Pine Mob

September 26, 1923: One of the most visible incidents of racial terror and intimidation in WNC began on this day in 1923 near the small town of Spruce Pine in Mitchell County. The terror inflicted had parallels with other contemporary violence such as the Tula...

September 16, 1896: William Jennings Bryan Campaigns in WNC

September 16: Dubbed “the greatest event, politically at least, in the history of Asheville and Western North Carolina” by the Asheville Citizen, the famed populist William Jennings Bryan made a presidential campaign appearance in WNC on this day in 1896. He appears...

September 11, 1987: Blue Ridge Parkway Completed

On this day in WNC history: After years of debate, revisions, construction, and even a bomb threat during the ceremony, the Blue Ridge Parkway was officially completed when the Linn Cove Viaduct was dedicated in 1987. This viaduct, sitting on the slope of Grandfather...

September 1, 1929: Beaucatcher Tunnel Opens

On this day in WNC history: One of the most famous Asheville landmarks opened (unofficially) on this day in 1929 as over 7,000 cars drove through the new Beaucatcher Tunnel. Beaucatcher Mountain long served as an eastern boundary for the growing city of Asheville....

August 8, 1913: Chestnut Blight

On this day in WNC history: On August 8, 1913, the Jackson County Journal reported the dangerous “Chestnut tree bark disease” destroying timber in the Northeast and threatening the forests of southern Appalachia. With a recently discovered case in Guilford County, NC,...

July 30, 1943: Road to Nowhere

On this day in WNC history: During a period of immense change and wartime sacrifices, a promise was made to residents of Swain County in 1943 to build a road around the new Fontana Lake. The federal commitment ultimately ended with much lingering consternation and a...