![](https://www.ashevillehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/valdese-300x225.jpg)
1993
Historic Valdese Foundation
The Historic Valdese Foundation won the award in 1993 for their Valdese Centennial Park project. The project design permits visitors to start at one part of a circular stone wall and read about Waldensian history from a series of ten bronze plaque situated around an 8.5-foot fountain. The town was begun by 29 French-speaking Protestant settlers from the Itailian Alps who got off a train in Burke County in 1893.