NOTE TO READERS: This is the second in a series of posts on the coming of the American Enka Corporation plant to Buncombe County’s Hominy Valley in 1928, and its…
Read moreThe Several Lives of West Asheville, Part III: Edwin Carrier in West Asheville
Quick 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 Several Lives of West Asheville, Part I: Sulphur Springs as Proto-Land of the Sky, 1827-1861
This 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…
Read moreAsbury’s Asheville: 1900-1907
For Starters: Some Guesses as to Why Asbury Chose Asheville Although the romantic designation as the Land of the Sky was bestowed upon Asheville in Christian Reid’s 1875 novel, this…
Read moreInto the Asheville Bowl: Channels and Streams
Having in the previous post delineated some major features of Asheville’s geophysical situation (elevation, rings of mountains, rivers, gaps), the eradication and removal of the Cherokees, and early land speculation,…
Read moreToward the Asheville Bowl: The Geophysical Context and Greed for Land
In summer the winds prevail from the southern points of the compass; they come to Asheville cooled by passage over the high mountains, and slightly tinctured with balsamic odors gathered there-from. In winter,…
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