Founded October 31, 1887 by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis M. Pease and later donated to the Women's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Allen Home for Girls, named in honor of English Quaker benefactor, Mrs. Marriage Allen, . . . — — Map (db m298447) HM
Welcome to the Blue Ridge, an area steeped in tradition and recognized world-wide as a crossroads of natural and cultural richness. The Parkway serves to tie together a diverse landscape and lifestyle-connecting the past with the present and . . . — — Map (db m299616) HM
The original Biltmore Dairy Bar began as an extension of the estate's dairy operations, established in 1897 as part of George Vanderbilt's vision of Biltmore as a self-sustaining farm.
Thanks to the prized herd of Jersey cows, the dairy . . . — — Map (db m179297) HM
The success of the final design of Biltmore House and its home grounds was the result of
the strong collaborative effort between George Vanderbilt, his architect Richard Morris Hunt,
and Frederick Law Olmited, who designed and executed a plan for . . . — — Map (db m209739) HM
George W. Vanderbilt, following the recommendation of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, was the first American landowner to implement scientific forestry, the management and conservation of forest lands, on a large scale. He hired Gifford . . . — — Map (db m58507) HM
Asheville's first official school building for black children, built in 1892. Destroyed by fire in the great tragedy of 1917, seven students died. In 1922 the famous Stephen's Lee High School was erected in it's place, becoming a beacon for black . . . — — Map (db m209939) HM
"...in the year 1891 there was not, I repeat, a single acre of forest under forestry anywhere in the United States...My work in Biltmore Forest began February 3, 1892...Thus Biltmore Forest became the beginning of practical Forestry in America."
. . . — — Map (db m209738) HM
Devastated western N.C. and western Piedmont; destroyed homes, crops, mills, bridges. Four lives lost, July 16, near main gate of Biltmore Estate. — — Map (db m97531) HM
As work progressed on Biltmore Estate, his last and largest private project, Frederick Law Olmsted observed, "It is a great work of peace we are engaged in and one of these days we shall all be proud of our parts in it." It was Olmsted who . . . — — Map (db m175856) HM
As you traveled up Biltmore's Approach Road, what did you notice about the landscape? You may be surprised to learn that the winding road, lush vegetation, and trickling streams were all designed as an experience which would affect your . . . — — Map (db m209737) HM
Early in 1861, Buncombe County farmer William Riley Powers joined the Rough and Ready Guards (Co. F, 14th North Carolina Infantry). The regiment was assigned to southeastern Virginia. There, Confederate Gen. Benjamin Huger discharged Pvts. Powers . . . — — Map (db m75532) HM
Lynching in America
Between 1865 and 1950, thousands of African Americans were victims of mob violence and racial terror lynching across the United States. Following the Civil War, white Southerners fiercely resisted equal rights for African . . . — — Map (db m246650) HM
Congressman, 1895-1901; U.S. Minister to Persia, 1902-07, and to Greece and Montenegro, 1907-09. His home, Richmond Hill, was ½ mile N.W. — — Map (db m209952) HM
The expedition led by Gen. Griffith Rutherford against the Cherokee, September, 1776, passed nearby on the banks of the Swannanoa River. — — Map (db m2279) HM
Celebrate Sassafras! Native Americans have used this lovely, slender native tree for millennia. The brittle bark, which glistens with small crystals, makes an excellent tea and flavors sarsparilla (root beer). The very young spring leaves are . . . — — Map (db m291257) HM
Before considering designs for his future home, George Vanderbilt brought landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to assess the potential of the land Vanderbilt had purchased. Olmsted agreed with Vanderbilt that distant views of the Blue Ridge . . . — — Map (db m209740) HM
After John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, new militia companies were formed in the South. Businessman William W. McDowell, whose wife acquired this house from her fathers and brothers estates, raised a company called the . . . — — Map (db m75524) HM
The Religious of Christian Education, an
order of nuns originally from France,
established Hillside Convent School on
January 6, 1908. In 1910, the school was
moved to this site and renamed St.
Genevieve~of~the~Pines. For eight decades,
the . . . — — Map (db m57479) HM
This central garden pays homage to North Carolina's long history of quilting. The flowers and plants represent some of the most popular traditional block patterns used in Appalachian quilts. The garden uses a technique called tessellation . . . — — Map (db m169047) HM
Writer of fiction and poetry. "Fielding Burke," her pen name. Author of Call Home the Heart and Highland Annals. Home, 1925-68, was 1/4 mile N. — — Map (db m57222) HM
Near and West of this spot at Gum Spring The County of Buncombe
was organized on April 16, 1792
under act of the
General Assembly of North Carolina
Erected by The National Society of the Colonial Dames Of America
In the State of . . . — — Map (db m12831) HM
Helen Morris Lewis suffrage leader who founded NC Equal Rights Association here at Mayor Thomas Patton's home in November 1894. — — Map (db m209102) HM
Eagle Street traditionally has been the commercial, cultural, and professional center of the African-American community. The YMI Cultural Center, commissioned by George W. Vanderbilt in 1892 as the Young Men's Institute, was renovated in the 1980s. . . . — — Map (db m98367) HM
Established in 1887 to
teach African Americans
in western N.C. Emerged
as residential preparatory
school for Black women.
Was ⅓ mi. NE until 1974. — — Map (db m274253) HM
Since 1902, when the first city auditorium
was built here, this area has been a center
for entertainment and the preservation of
Southern Appalachian culture. Acclaim has
gone to composer Boscom Lamar Lunsford
and playwright Hubert Hayes for . . . — — Map (db m36176) HM
Dedicated to the memory of
Samuel Ashe
1725 - 1813
Distinguished North Carolinian
Governor, Statesman and Jurist
in whose honor
the City of Asheville was named
— — Map (db m30120) HM
Building the Block
Gateway to Community
As you turn down Eagle Street, you'll find yourself in The Block. This revitalizing district was crucial to the culture, economy and history of Asheville's African American community for more . . . — — Map (db m283144) HM
When the war began, more than 15 percent of Buncombe Countys residents were enslaved people. James Patton housed slaves behind his Eagle Hotel (straight ahead), where they worked as waiter, maids, grooms, cooks, and trail guides. Three blocks to . . . — — Map (db m75507) HM
Near the end of the Civil War in 1865, Confederate Battery Porter was positioned uphill to your right on Stony Hill, at that time the highest point in Asheville. The battery included four 12-pounder field pieces known as Napoleons, a model 1857 . . . — — Map (db m75505) HM
James Vester Miller was chief brickmason for the 1925 Municipal Building. The cornucopias over the side doorway mark the entrance to the City Market, located there from 1926 to 1932. Of slave parentage, Miller achieved renown as a craftsman, . . . — — Map (db m98368) HM
1927
Buncombe
County Court House
Erected by the People of
Buncombe County
Board of County Commissioners
Hon.E.M.Lyda
Chairman
Hon.W.E.Johnson~Hon.W.E.McLean
Burgin Pernnell
County Attorney
L.E.Jarrett
County . . . — — Map (db m18694) HM
Wall Street takes its name from the stone wall below, built to retain Battery Park Hill. The alley between the wall and buildings was used for deliveries. Until the mid-1920s, when Wall Street was paved and a sidewalk laid to span the alley, access . . . — — Map (db m209883) HM
This playhouse was built by W.O.
Wolfe in 1900 for the Wolfe
children. It was moved from the
family homesite at 92 Woodfin
Street for preservation in 1955. — — Map (db m267496) HM
Asheville's central square has long served the
needs of government and commerce. From
1892 to 1926 a massive city hall with a bell
tower dominated the east end. The building
housed police and fire departments in addition
to municipal offices. . . . — — Map (db m17062) HM
Gateway to Community
As you turn down Eagle Street, you'll find yourself in The Block, one of several Black business districts in Asheville. This area has been important to the culture, economy, and history of Asheville's Black community . . . — — Map (db m283145) HM
Weaving a Movement
It was here just north of Asheville where artist and teacher Frances Goodrich first saw a stunning woven coverlet. Throughout the 20th century, the work of Goodrich and others, including Eleanor Vance, Charlotte Yale, . . . — — Map (db m283137) HM
City Center
Historically, the intersection before you was an important crossroads for the exchange of goods and livestock. The Buncombe Turnpike, completed in 1828, followed the original trading path created by Native Americans, stretching . . . — — Map (db m283133) HM
Buncombe County was named for Edward Buncombe (1742-1778), a North Carolina plantation owner who served in the Revolutionary War and died of injuries sustained in the Battle of Germantown.
The county was formed in 1792 from vast tracts of . . . — — Map (db m229427) HM
In 1926 Asheville and Buncombe County officials considered erecting matching government buildings on Court Plaza. The city chose Douglas Ellington's Beaux-Art design with its Art Deco embellishments. The county, however, rejected Ellington's plan . . . — — Map (db m224090) HM
Asheville's Flat Iron Building, completed in 1926, boats triangular proportions and rich ornamentation like its predecessor in New York City. Albert C. Wirth designed this structure to house professional offices and shops. Typical of rapid . . . — — Map (db m187804) HM
Colonel Frank Coxe opened the first Battery Park Hotel in 1886. The rambling structure on a hill top became internationally prominent, catering to famous guests. In the early 1920s Edwin W. Groves purchased the property. He built a brand new . . . — — Map (db m30224) HM
Churches and schools have always been vital public institutions in Black communities. Church picnics, suppers, and food and clothing drives foster community support. While Jim Crow laws and segregation denied Black citizens equal rights, church . . . — — Map (db m267540) HM
An ornamental eagle perched high in front of
the Eagle Hotel one block south. Irish
immigrant James Patton opened the hostelry in
1814. Almost opposite the Eagle, the
Swannanoa Hotel began operation in 1878,
making South Main Street - now . . . — — Map (db m57588) HM
Colonel Robert K. Morgan and his B-17 bomber crew of WWII's "Memphis Belle"
were the first to complete twenty-five combat missions over German-occupied
Europe. At a time when bomber casualties reached eighty percent, their
exceptional . . . — — Map (db m215041) HM WM
Born in Rutherford County, NC, James Vester Miller was the son of a slave, Louisa, and her master. After the Civil War, his mother came to Asheville with her 3 children.
Miller's interest in bricklaying began at 10 years old. Developing his . . . — — Map (db m283143) HM
English-born Richard Sharp Smith came to Asheville in 1890 as supervising architect of the Biltmore House. Buildings and residences he later designed gave the city much of its architectural flair. On this block on what was once the Buncombe . . . — — Map (db m187803) HM
Lynching in America
Thousands of Black people were the victims of racial terror lynching in the United States between 1865 and 1950. After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution ended slavery and extended . . . — — Map (db m205149) HM
Just off the square, which was the commercial center, Water Street catered to farmers bringing their products into Asheville for barter. When its natural springs began disappearing in the late 1800s, Water Street was renamed Lexington Avenue. . . . — — Map (db m283136) HM
W.O. Wolfe's tombstone shop, fondly recalled by his son, Thomas in Look Homeward Angel, once stood on this corner. During the boom of the 1920s, real estate developer L.B. Jackson purchased the property from Julia Westall Wolfe and built . . . — — Map (db m97548) HM
Founded in 1880 by Rev. Robert Rumley and moved to present location during the tenure of his successor, Rev. Jacob Nelson. Rev. John Hairston oversaw further expansion and installation of large pipe organ. Present building was designed by . . . — — Map (db m267544) HM
Oscar Wong was born in Jamaica to
Chinese parents and immigrated to the
United States to attend Notre Dame. After a successful engineering career, he moved to Asheville. In 1994, he opened Highland Brewing Company, the city's first legal brewery . . . — — Map (db m283056) HM
Until electricity was introduced in the late 1880s, gas and kerosene lamps provided lighting in Public Square—now Pack Square. Horse-head fountains, fed from a reservoir on Beaucatcher Mountain, were affixed to lampposts at the east and west . . . — — Map (db m98364) HM
A Spanish "master of the arch," Raphael Guastavino brought a soaring elegance to American architecture, artfully using layers of thin clay tiles to build vaults, domes, and roofs in more than a thousand buildings.
In 1890, he joined the . . . — — Map (db m209933) HM
Making Way for Change
At the turn of the 20th century, this city block was the site of Battery Porter Hill, a ridge measuring seven stories high topped by the original Battery Park Hotel. With its Queen Anne elegance, the resort's 500 . . . — — Map (db m209937) HM
What began as a small show in a city festival resulted in two of the most
important cultural events in the region. In 1928, the Asheville Chamber of
Commerce asked musician and folk historian Bascom Lamar Lunsford to
arrange a folk song and dance . . . — — Map (db m229414) HM
Asheville's bustling, cosmopolitan scene in the 1920s led to the opening of many department stores and exclusive shops along these three blocks of Haywood Street. For fifty years the area thrived until suburban malls lured shoppers away. . . . — — Map (db m209928) HM
The U.S. Supreme Court Decision, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), legalized segregation in public facilities. Asheville began providing schools for Black students in 1888. From 1923 to 1965, Asheville's Stephens-Lee High School was nationally . . . — — Map (db m282512) HM
A Lyrical Legacy
Asheville's musical legacy is woven from the melodies of many cultures and genres, passed down through generations. Cherokee flutes and drums met Scots-Irish reels and ballads when European settlers arrived in the region. . . . — — Map (db m209935) HM
(panel 1)
The Asheville Black Cultural Trail
Dignity, Humanity, and Agency
Did you know that Black people helped create this region's first non-Indigenous households? Did you know that Black people helped build Asheville and . . . — — Map (db m282513) HM
(panel 1)
The Asheville Black Cultural Trail
Dignity, Humanity, and Agency
Did you know that Black people helped create this region's first non-Indigenous households? Did you know that Black people helped build Asheville and . . . — — Map (db m282514) HM
The Bunkum Stone is a sister to the Barney Stone in Ireland. It is said that kissing the Bunkum Stone confers the gift of loquacity.
The Bunkum Stone is named in honor of Felix Walker, the US Congressman from Buncombe County (1820) for whom . . . — — Map (db m305007) HM
Buncombe County was carved out of a magnificent mountain landscape etched by indigenous trails and scattered settlements. The bill creating the county was ratified on January 14, 1792.
In 1793, the county's first official courthouse, a jail and . . . — — Map (db m98370) HM
Cherokee people have been practicing the artform of weaving for at least 17,000 years. The two most commonly used materials for basket making is white oak and rivercane, rivercane being considered by many basket makers as the most traditional . . . — — Map (db m283140) HM
The Anikituwahgi, now known as the Cherokee people, have lived in the southern Appalachian Mountains for more than 15,000 years. The ancestral Cherokee territory included parts of present-day North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, . . . — — Map (db m283138) HM
The Cherokee language has been spoken in these mountains for thousands of years. In 1821 a Cherokee man named Sequoyah created a way to write this ancient language. By giving a written symbol to every sound in the Cherokee language, Sequoyah created . . . — — Map (db m283139) HM
Author of "Look Homeward Angel" (1929), "Of Time and the River", and other works. Home stands 200 yards N., birthplace 500 yds. N.E. — — Map (db m12706) HM
Dixieland
Asheville native Thomas Wolfe achieved international fame with the publication of his first full-length novel, Look Homeward, Angel, in 1929. Many of the incidents in the book took place in his mother's boardinghouse, "Old . . . — — Map (db m12757) HM
Thomas Clayton Wolle drew from the early years of growing up here in his hometown of Asheville for inspiration throughout his literary career. Born on October 3, 1900, Wolfe was the youngest of eight children to Julia Elizabeth Wolfe, the ambitious . . . — — Map (db m229411) HM
James Alexander
Zebulon Baird
William Brittain
Adam Cooper
Samuel Davidson
William Davidson
Lot Harper
Joseph Harrison
William Moore
John Patton
Daniel Smith
Valentine Thrash
David Vance
Robert Williamson . . . — — Map (db m231266) HM
The Urban Trail, a self-guided walk through historic downtown, begins here at the heart of the city, the public square. Philanthropist George Willis Pack, for whom the square was named in 1903, gave generously to the entire community. So too, the . . . — — Map (db m98369) HM
This marker is erected
in loving memory of the
men of Buncombe County
who volunteered and served
in the War with Spain,
the insurrection in the
Philippines and the
China Relief Expedition,
1898 - 1902 — — Map (db m37194) HM
A one-hour drive to the west is the Qualla Boundary, home to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). The EBCI is one of three Federally recognized Cherokee Tribes and are descendants of those who were able to resist the forced removal to the . . . — — Map (db m283142) HM
[inscriptions, west center interior] "It is the Veteran:"
It is the Veteran who has given us and defended Freedom of Religion.
It is the Veteran who has given us and defended Freedom of Press.
It is the Veteran who has given us . . . — — Map (db m30268) HM
Est. 1892 as a center for social, moral, religious influence for blacks working at Biltmore. Businesses thrived in building 100 yards, S. — — Map (db m30151) HM
Here, on this ground, community grew like a garden. Paving a way for economic freedom, newly emancipated Isaac and Delia Dickson (pictured at right w/ horse), worked, saved, & bought several tracts of land on Valley Street where they rented homes to . . . — — Map (db m209940) HM
After the end of the Civil War, Black people began establishing enterprises in Asheville. Isaac Dickson's investments sparked a thriving business district and neighborhood that stretched from Eagle and Market streets into the present-day East . . . — — Map (db m267549) HM
The railroad brought both prosperity and hardship: the state of NC leased over 3,500 black prisoners to build the rail, from Asheville to Murphy North Carolina.
The bees work
Their work is taken from them.
We are like the . . . — — Map (db m267563) HM
This mural is dedicated to the history of this area, The Block & the East End, Asheville's oldest African-American neighborhood and business district.
The early residents of the East End were former slaves . . . — — Map (db m267561) HM
Gen. Davis Tillson raised 1,700-man 1st U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery in Tennessee and North Carolina in 1864. The unit encamped nearby while garrisoned in Asheville in 1865. Assigned to Tillson's 2nd brigade, the men participated in operations in . . . — — Map (db m294918) HM
On April 3, 1865, Union Col. Isaac M. Kirby left Tennessee with 900 men including his own 101st Ohio Infantry for a scout in the direction of Asheville. Three days later, local resident Nicholas Woodfin spotted the Federals on the Buncombe . . . — — Map (db m209953) HM
On April 3, 1865, Union Col. Isaac M. Kirby left East Tenn. with 1100 men on a raid against Asheville. On April 6, Kirby's force was defeated by local militia under Col. G. W. Clayton. Earthworks remain 100 yds. N. — — Map (db m55543) HM
United States Senator, 1895-1903. Republican leader, newspaperman, federal judge. His home is 3/10 mile east; grave is 1.3 mi. west. — — Map (db m12708) HM
World War I soldier, aviator. First pilot
of Escadrille Lafayette to shoot down
enemy plane. Killed in action, Sept. 23, 1916.
Home 200 yds. W. — — Map (db m31325) HM
Graves of Thomas Wolfe & "O. Henry," authors; Zebulon B. Vance, governor; Thomas L. Clingman and Robert R. Reynolds, U.S. senators. One-half mile W. — — Map (db m97532) HM
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