Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville North Carolina is a warm, inviting town with incredible views, gorgeous old buildings and a lot of laid back southern charm about it. It isn't a rich place financially, but the history and culture of the area can't be bought at any price. And what the town may lack in gilding, with the exception of the Biltmore Estate, it more than makes up for with the wealth of culture a visitor can easily find in this pretty city. Asheville's attitude is a very positive and cool with hospitable and friendly people that are accustomed to visitors year round.

Over the past hundred years, there have been all manner of extremely beautiful buildings built and subsequently restored in Asheville. From Victorian and Arts and Crafts Movement homes all the way to the large number of Art Deco buildings in the downtown area, Asheville's scenery is extremely unique. No other city has had such a development cycle, with so much activity early in the 20th century and so much time between buildings thereafter. In between taking in all manner of performances, just take a long walk through town. It's like stepping backward in time to a whole different, slightly simpler era.

Asheville is an attractive city for both local residents as well as tourists. The city also has a bustling nightlife, various places to eat, places to see and can also offer you a great shopping experience. People of any age or any profession will surely find the city exciting and vivacious to their own liking.

Asheville History

Asheville is in an area where Native Americans have lived for a very long time. The Cherokee Nation existed there for thousands of years before Hernando de Soto arrived in 1540. With this Spanish explorer, Europeans had arrived. Only in 1784 did Asheville become a town in any sense of the word. Exercising a land grant, Colonel Sam Davidson settled in the Swannanoa Valley and built a log cabin. Soon thereafter, Colonel Davidson was lured away and killed by Cherokees. After Davidson's twin brother avenged his death, Major William Davidson himself settled in the area.

In the beginning of Buncombe County in 1792, Morristown formed in 1793 at the top of a plateau where two Native American trails crossed one another. When the place was incorporated in 1797, the name of the town was changed to Asheville in honor of North Carolina governor Samuel Ashe.

During the Civil War, Asheville contributed soldiers to both sides of the fight, with a fairly heavy emphasis on giving plenty of Johnny Rebs. For a time, the factory that produced the Enfield brand of rifle was even located in Asheville. In 1865 there was a minor battle that the Union retreated from, citing the Confederacy's well prepared entrenchment and the Union's orders to only take the town if doing so would not cause heavy losses. A couple of months later, another group of Union soldiers were successful in taking the town. Later on, the site of the original Battle of Asheville was where the University of North Carolina at Asheville's campus was built.

After the war ended, the Western North Carolina Railroad connected a rail line between Salisbury and Asheville, which was the first to reach it. Over time, steady growth of manufacturing accompanied the railway due to the increased ability to move products. Textile mills were one of the more common production enterprises popular in Asheville. The second railway to reach Ashville was the Asheville and Spartanburg Railroad, which was completed in 1886. In 1889, the first of North Carolina's street railway cars ran in Asheville, to be replaced by buses in 1934.

The Depression hit Asheville incredibly hard, with eight of the local banks failing. Wachovia only survived because Winston-Salem bailed it out. Asheville's per capita debt at that point was the highest of any city in the nation. Since that time, economic stagnation has steadily been replaced by the growing tourism industry. With industrial jobs moving elsewhere, Asheville is slowly but certainly finding its niche as a place where tourists can come to have a good time. With all of the classic architecture and the numerous festivals and performances in town, there's a lot to see and do.

About Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville North Carolina is a small city of roughly 83,000 people as of the 2010 Census report. Located in Buncombe County, Asheville has a lot to offer those fortunate enough to pay it a visit. From a violent beginning to its far tamer modern days, Asheville is a neat place to visit for a lot of reasons. Considering its nine breweries, it's really no wonder the title of "Beer City" has stuck on Asheville for several years running. With some tasty beer, everything is more fun.

Of course, Asheville is more of a tourism based city, with mostly professionals who are seeking a break from work. The city is a great place for being self-employed with hardly any major corporations in the city. There is a large class of performance artists in the city who actually make their living from things like busking, i.e. performing on the street for money and food. The chance a person has to get up on stage in Asheville is very good, because there are so many stages on which a person can perform. Of course, this artistic life style does contribute to a slightly lower than average per capita income, but that's okay because the local economy works to let that equal higher buying power per dollar. The average annual income of $20,000 in Asheville buys you as many paints, guitar picks and lattes as twice as much would in some larger and more expensive cities.

Asheville suffered from a lot of economic stagnation starting during the Great Depression and only ending in the 80s. Because of this, the entire downtown area experienced almost no new construction for over 60 years. While some people get hung up on having something new all the time, the locals find it refreshing that the character of the older parts of town hasn't changed much in generations. The Art Deco styling's of many of these buildings are a lovely to look at how things used to be designed and built. As well, the Arts and Crafts Movement is also represented in a lot of buildings in Asheville. For example, standing inside the Basilica of St. Lawrence, you can gaze up at an incredible dome paintings. They just don't make buildings like that anymore.

Of course, not everybody is broke in Asheville. There is a robust middle class with plenty of good quality manufacturing and white collar work to be done. And if you're supremely wealthy, you could always buy Biltmore Estate, which just happens to be the biggest house in the entire country.

About Buncombe County, North Carolina

Asheville North Carolina is the county seat of Buncombe County. From its inception in 1791, Buncombe County has been an interesting place to be. Interestingly enough, Buncombe County even contributed a word to the English language without anyone even trying to. Buncombe County was name for a soldier who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

In 1791, some components of both Burke County and Rutherford County were removed, and reformed into what is now called Buncombe County. Its name comes from a man named Colonel Edward Buncombe, who will be remembered as having fought in the Revolutionary War Battle of Germantown and being captured by the British. Of course, the county has undergone several types of changes over its lifetime.

For example, in the beginning Buncombe County extended all the way to the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. Later on, it had a chunk removed, along with Yancey County, in order to form Madison County. However, this was not the most bizarre thing which has ever occurred across the history of Buncombe County.

The Missouri Compromise was a hot button topic during the 16th Congress, which happened to be meeting in 1820. During that session, there was a lengthy debate that culminated in members of the House of Representatives calling for an immediate vote on the Compromise. However, the Representative of the district containing Buncombe County, Felix Walker, stood up to speak because he felt his constituents demanded that he do so. He gave a speech "for Buncombe" that ended up being so nonsensical, so untimely and so undeniably irrelevant that it was declared to be Buncombe. From then on, calling something bunkum, which later turned into bunk, became a way to declare talk to be meaningless and devoid of sense.

According to the report given by the 2000 Census, Buncombe County contained roughly 206,000 people within its borders. Across this space, the average population density was 314 people for each square mile. Of the nearly 86,000 households represented, just slightly over half of them were married couples. Nearly 90% of the county is white, and for every hundred women there are almost ninety men.