One of the most fulfilling kickbacks of being an archivist, for me, is knowing that there is something new to be uncovered as I pick up the next piece of paper, or the next photograph. The Rankin-Bearden Collection is no disappointer. When Asheville resident Walter Diehl found himself the last keeper of the family’s records, he donated them to Pack Memorial Library’s
As I began to create a record for this postcard purchased recently on eBay, I got that funny sensation that comes when one of the photos begins to speak. The Craftsman Style bungalow was built around 1907 and featured the cedar shingle exterior popular until the 1930’s. I know from my own home how hard the big
Wednesday, February 26th, 6:00 until 7:30 PM Pack Library Lord Auditorium Rich Mathews, historian and researcher for Mathews Architecture, will present a slide presentation about the Southside Neighborhood in Asheville Here Rich gives us a preview of his talk. Join us on Wednesday night for MORE! I’m a preservationist. I love old buildings and historic neighborhoods.
I joined the staff at Pack Memorial Library in 1990 when I took the position of Special Collections Librarian. Lewis Buck was my closest associate in the North Carolina section. As I studied to get up to speed on Asheville history, he steered me toward the brief histories of Asheville and Buncombe County in Cabins
By 1900 the thriving Jewish population of Asheville already had two congregations: Beth Ha Tephila (founded in 1891) and Bikor Cholim (founded in 1899; name changed to Beth Israel in 1950). However there was always one single Jewish community which needed a place for meetings and events. The Jewish community held its functions at a variety of
Asheville residents Lynne and Jim Wilson donated a gold mine of a notebook containing seventeen 8 x 10 prints of houses that had been recently constructed in Asheville, circa 1926 to 1930. All of the photographs were taken by the well-known Asheville photographer, Herbert W. Pelton. The original binder was an old black ringed notebook