Asheville Art Museum | Asheville-Buncombe Library | UNC Asheville | YMI Cultural Center
Appalachian State University |Appalachian Cultural Museum |Southern Highland Craft Guild

SENSE OF PLACE INDEX
(19th and 20th Century Reflections)


View of Asheville from "Beaucatcher Mountain," from King, pl. 1, 
"The Great South: Among the Mountains of Western North Carolina." Scribner's Monthly 7 (1874): 513-44. 

Place Matters:  Early Regional History of Western NC
Place matters to those who live in Western North Carolina. Place also mattered to those who traveled through the western part of the state in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. And, place mattered to those who called the locale "home" for even short periods of time. Recurrent in many of the accounts that may be found of travel and life in the mountains, are passages that reflect both the dweller, traveler, and the writer's understanding of these often remote places. Sometimes the writer's reflections and observations are crass and insensitive, sometimes they are so florid it is difficult to extract the true essence of place from the passage. Sometimes the writer shows us how "their" place can distort what they think they know about "our" place. Sometimes the writer strikes a cord with our own understanding of place and of this place. Sometimes we see ourselves looking back at the writer as "outsider". Throughout most of the literature it is often difficult to discern who is "Other". But mostly these brief passages give us a varied picture of a region during a window of time not like our own.  We can learn much from their words and from the images that accompany some texts. Reader's need to be advised that some passages may be offensive and insensitive in their language. The views expressed in those passages reflect the views of the authors and often the context and era in which the authors were living. 

Passages have been chosen from a number of nineteenth and early twentieth century books and periodicals. They have been selected with an eye to well-known locations in Western North Carolina. Many readers will recognize familiar locations, others will discover them for the first time. It is believed that all will understand the universal need for a "sense of place" and find in these passages a satisfaction that comes with knowing more of this place we call Western North Carolina. It is also believed that many will want to read further and the citations will lead the readers to the bibliographic citation or to the full text of the books, periodicals and documents where a more complete account may by found and the context may be more fully developed.
Contributors: 
 Contributions to this site are largely the words of those who lived or traveled in the region between the mid-eighteenth century and the early twentieth-century. Students, volunteers and staff of the partnering Western North Carolina Heritage project are engaged in a continuing effort to retrieve and compile and to annotate and edit the materials on these pages. The contributions to this regional history project are ongoing and anyone wishing to contribute to the material found here may submit their material to the Editorial Board of the Western North Carolina Heritage project for review and inclusion in the project. 

Some of those who have contributed their time and energy to this project and to the preceding  " Land of the Sky" project are listed in the INDEX OF CONTRIBUTORS TO PROJECT.

A SELECTED INDEX of PLACES
A -
B -
C -
D -
  •  
  •  
E -
  •  
  •  
F -
  •  
G - 
H -
  •  
I -
  •  
  •  
J -
  • Jefferson
  • Junaluska (Lake Junaluska)
K -
L -
  •  
M -
  • Madison County
  • Marion
  • Mars Hill
  • Marshall
  • Masa Knob
  • Mills River
  • Mitchell County
  • Mitchell Falls
  • Morganton
  • Morristown, NC (see Asheville)
  • Mount Mitchell
  • Murphy
N -

 
O -
  • Oakley
  • Oconaluftee
  • Ocanaluftee River
  • Old Bald Mountain (see Bald Mountain)
  • Old Fort
  • Onslow County
P -
  •  
Q -
  • Qualla Boundary [Quallatown]
  • Quallatown
  •  
R -
S -
  • Saluda
  • Sapphire
  • Sandy Mush
  • Soco Gap
  • Soco Falls
  • Sunset Mountain
T -
  •  
U -
  • Unaka Mountains
V -
  • Valle Crucis
  • Valley Town (Valleytown)
  •  
W -
  • Weaverville
  • Webster
  • Wilkes County
X -
Y -
  • Yadkin County
  • Yadkin River
  • Yancey County
  •  
Z -
Home | Partners | Collections | About | Contact | Text Only
Copyright ©2001-2002, Land of the Sky

 

The Western North Carolina Heritage project is 100% supported with federal LSTA funds made possible through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.