Asheville Citizen-Times
WNC History Column
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...
WNC History: Story behind the WWII detainee camps at Grove Park Inn, Montreat Assembly Inn
This year marks the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt in February 1942, and the resulting interment of predominantly Japanese American citizens or residents from the West Coast into camps scattered across the California...
WNC History: Bettie Sims was not a typical moonshiner
“I didn’t set fire to the jail,” Bettie Sims calmly told a representative from The Charlotte Observer on Dec. 11, 1906. The reporter had tracked down the 29-year-old Polk County native the day before she was to appear on bond in front of a federal judge on charges of,...
WNC History: Rumbling Bald was rumbling in 1874
The mountains of Western North Carolina occasionally experience earthquakes and seismic activity. These instances often pass without much notice or damage. In 1874, however, the mountains at the eastern edge of the Hickory Nut Gorge — along the northern arm of modern...
WNC History: A trek of self-liberation from Asheville to Tennessee
On Tuesday evening, Sept. 14, 1819, Bob, a 14-year-old “familiar artful fellow … (with) a good countenance” liberated himself from his captor, James Smith, in Asheville. He traveled north along the Buncombe Turnpike toward Paint Mountain and into Tennessee. Bob took...
WNC History: Incarcerated laborers on railroad attempted freedom
“A female convict on the (Western North Carolina Railroad), emptied a phial of sulphuric acid into the coffee of Mr. Griffin, the newly appointed Steward, but he did not like the taste, so the poison did no damage,” reads a blurb in the Sunday, April 15, 1877, edition...