Asheville, North Carolina History – Beloved Asheville author and historian Lou Harshaw once observed that Asheville has always been a place apart. “It is not really a southern city, but always of the South. Its differences make for a fascinating whole. In this time, more than two hundred years after the first Europeans came over the eastern escarpment of the Blue Ridge to take up land and make new homes, the concern for the future has never been greater.
Asheville,” she opined, “is absorbing new human values, new technology. There are new ways in which to live, and to relate to one another. In later years,” she continued, “the decades over the run of this century will be very important in Asheville history – a time of seeking control of destiny.” As she so aptly noted, looking back at Asheville’s rich history can enrich what lies ahead – and it should.
The first Europeans who pressed into the mountains of Western North Carolina are believed to have been soldiers who had come up from Florida as part of an expedition led by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto (1500-1542), who visited the region in search of gold two years before his death. De Soto’s expedition was followed bin 1567 by a similar gold seeking excursion led by Spanish explorer Juan Pardo, active in the sixteenth century. The Cherokee, one of the most advanced tribes east of the Mississippi sparsely populated the area. Asheville’s rich history continues on in beautifully illustrated detail in this extensive work by Amy Waters Yarsinske.
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