Asheville Junction: A Blog by David E. Whisnant

Mud on the Rafters

More than thirty years ago, just short of my father’s seventieth birthday, I taped a long interview with him to explore his memories of his early life in Asheville.  Toward the end of our talk, I asked him about the house his parents had bought in the still relatively new suburb of West Asheville in 1923, when he was nine years old. “They had been looking and looking and looking,” he recalled, and had managed to save maybe $1400 to use as a down payment.

And [they] found this house on Brownwood Avenue, and it was very reasonably priced.  The price of it was $4200.  And . . .  all of the framing and much of the other lumber in it was . . . reclaimed from the flood in 1916.

There were houses by the dozens went down French Broad River and crashed into that bridge down there.  And piles and piles of lumber.  And a lot of it, all the framing, in fact, was lumber that came out of lumber yards and houses as a result of the flood.  If you go up in the attic and look, you’ll see mud and stuff all over the rafters where they had reclaimed it and put it up.  But the house was alright; it was a fairly good house.  Had five rooms.

Flood damage and piled lumber, French Broad River,  July 1916. D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville

Flood damage and piled lumber, French Broad River, July 1916. D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville

The 1916 Asheville flood, following closely upon a major one of 1910, left the central business district, located high on a hill, mostly undamaged.  But it devastated much of the

Flooded streetcar barn at Riverside Park, July 1916.  Pack Memorial Public Library.

Flooded streetcar barn at Riverside Park, July 1916. Pack Memorial Public Library.

city’s infrastructure that lay close to the banks of the Swannanoa and the French Broad: power stations, the tracks and depot of the Western North Carolina Railroad, lavish Riverside Park (and the nearby “carbarn” of the street railway), and large numbers of homes and businesses.

The muddy rafters in the attic of my grandfather’s house that have in stayed my mind all these years come from near what will be the midpoint of our story.

My grandfather–raised on a farm down the mountain–had been driving streetcars in Asheville for 25 years by then, and the city was in the midst of the biggest boom it had yet seen (or was to see for another half-century).

The ridge of the Brownwood Avenue house seems, then, a good point from which to look out over the rest of the story (both earlier and later).

References

David C. Bailey, Joseph M. Canfield, and Harold E. Cox, Trolleys in the Land of the Sky (2000); Pack Memorial Public Library photographic collection; David E. Whisnant interview with John Keenan Whisnant, 1 April 1984.

 

5 thoughts on “Mud on the Rafters

  1. David Whisnant Post author

    Thanks, Joy! I really am excited about it, and have *many* more posts in my head. Plus a lot more work to do to get ready to do some of them. But I see more or less the whole thing in my mind.

  2. Drew McLean

    David,

    I met you and Anne during a conference for the National Parks Service at the Grand Bohemian Asheville. I have been referencing this blog as well as the “Driving Through Time” Digital Blue Ridge Parkway. Both are phenomenal in terms of source material and photos. Thanks for compiling and sharing this detailed and colorful history, and connecting your readers with tales of North Carolina’s formative years. Keep up the good work.

  3. David Whisnant Post author

    Drew: I just saw this, very belatedly. Have been working hard on subsequent posts. Thank you for your kind words, and for your referencing this blog and Driving Through Time. Best to you! David

  4. Pingback: Family Challenges in the 'Teens: A Strike, a Flood, and an Epidemic | Asheville Junction: A Blog by David E. WhisnantAsheville Junction: A Blog by David E. Whisnant

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