As the Titanic was sinking on the night of April 15, 1912, the distress signal its telegraph operators tapped out was not (as in popular myth) SOS, but its predecessor CQD (CQ=”stop…
Read moreThis is the story of a street railway operator and his family moving from a small rented house (their home for 16 years) on an in-town estate in downtown Asheville…
Read moreThis post is lovingly and admiringly dedicated to my father-in-law Frank Joseph Mitchell (February 12, 1927 – July 25, 2017). Lifelong student, prodigious reader, indefatigable writer, fearless preacher and unforgettable…
Read moreQuick Take on the Early Years: Incorporation, De-/Re-incorporation, Annexation, and Mini-Boom, 1889-1925 When West Asheville–already on the way toward development and modernization–was incorporated on February 9, 1889, the language of…
Read moreThe Story So Far Edwin Carrier was born in 1839, so he was in his late forties when he arrived in Western North Carolina (probably in 1885). Early discussions of…
Read moreThis post arose initially from my effort to understand the West Asheville of the early 1920s, when both my Whisnant and Rudisill grandparents moved there–the Whisnants from fifteen years in…
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