Smith-McDowell House

The Smith-McDowell House is one of the finest ante-bellum constructions in western North Carolina and Asheville's oldest brick residence. Situated on a portion of a land grant issued to Colonel Daniel Smith after the Revolutionary War, the c. 1840 Smith-McDowell ...

Unearthing Florida: Chattahoochee Landing Mounds

For Native Americans, rivers were highways, and along the Apalachicola River, one site that served as a major hub of activity was the Chattahoochee Landing.

The Chattahoochee Landing site sits strategically at the junction of two major rivers that form ...

Biltmore Estate Office

George Washington Vanderbilt's vision for his Biltmore Estate was not limited to his grand mansion, but included a picturesque, manorial village that would serve as an ornament of the landscape and solve the practical problem of housing estate workers and ...

Churches on Church Street

Since the mid-19th century, Church Street has been home to a number of congregations that chose to locate south of Patton Avenue. The Central United Methodist Church met in a frame building beginning in 1837, but the current building was ...

St. Matthias Episcopal Church

St. Matthias Episcopal Church stands at the top of a steep hill in an area of central Asheville known locally as "East End," one of the oldest neighborhoods developed by African Americans in the city. Reverend Jarvis Buxton, a noted ...

Unearthing Florida: Apalachicola River

Flowing over 100 miles from the northern state line to the Gulf of Mexico meanders one of the most important waterways in Florida’s history: the Apalachicola River.

The Apalachicola River basin within Florida covers more area than the state of Connecticut ...

African American Masonic Temple

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the area south of Pack Square was the center of the black business district, complete with doctors, lawyers, restaurants, a drug store, boarding house, library, and the Young Men's Institute. Brick buildings ...

Asheville City Hall

The Asheville City Building is a colorful, massive, and eclectic Art Deco masterpiece. Douglas D. Ellington, an architect who came to Asheville in the mid-1920s, designed the eight-story building, which was completed in 1928. Originally proposed as part of a ...

Pack Square

The public square has been a central feature of Asheville since the town's creation in 1797. The county court ordered that lands for a public square be procured in the "most convenient and interesting" place. Lying at the intersection of ...

Masonic Temple

The Ancient Free and Accepted Mason is a fraternal order with a worldwide membership, thought to have arisen from practicing stone masons and cathedral builders in the early Middle Ages. The lodge, first formed in early 18th-century England, is the ...