WNC History Column

About the Column

Western North Carolina has a long and diverse history. Follow along with us as we research and explore the compelling stories of the people who came before us and helped shape our region.

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Infidelity may have led to Guastavino’s move here, work on Biltmore, basilica

The wild ride of Asheville streetcars, 1889-1934

Earliest European settlement in US interior was in WNC

Rumors of Babe Ruth’s death after Asheville stop were greatly exaggerated

Beacon Manufacturing and a Swannanoa fiddling phenom

The rich life of Lula Owl Gloyne, 1st RN and 1st World War I officer from Cherokee

Journey started in Asheville for 1st US woman to earn medical degree

Integration at Black Mountain College

‘Black Mountain Blues’ at Roseland Gardens

Inside the 1948 Highland Hospital fire that killed Zelda Fitzgerald

Carl Sandburg, an iconic American, gets a reappraisal

Waste Basket Boutique paper dresses were made in Asheville by Mars

The ghost at Inn Around the Corner

Through Rock and Time: The Railroad Comes to the Mountains

A ghost in Black Mountain

1882 Cowee Tunnel Disaster heroism, mistaken identity

MLK’s trips to Black Mountain & Montreat

Who was the dead swindler on a pedestal in an Asheville funeral home?

The Revolutionary journeys of 2 young WNC women

Story behind the accused murderer in 1936 Battery Park Hotel homicide

Story behind the WWII detainee camps at Grove Park Inn, Montreat Assembly Inn

Bettie Sims was not a typical moonshiner

Rumbling Bald was rumbling in 1874

A trek of self-liberation from Asheville to Tennessee

Incarcerated laborers on railroad attempted freedom