Asheville NC - Group Planner and Business Guide - Asheville North Carolina

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History . . .The first recorded visitor to the confluence of what now are called the French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers was Hernando De Soto, who traversed North Carolina in 1540. Less than 150 years later, trade with the Indians was being established, with early trading paths following old Indian routes that crossed at Asheville's present location.

After the Revolutionary War, the first white settlers in Buncombe County were predominantly Scotch-Irish immigrants from Northern Ireland whose livelihoods in Ireland had been ruined by restrictive British tariffs on wool and weaving. By 1785, there was a permanent settlement know as "Eden Land" - a settlement that would later witness the wooing and wedding of one of its young women, Elizabeth Patton, by famed woodsman Davy Crockett.

The town was incorporated in 1797 and officially named Asheville in honor of North Carolina Governor Samuel Ashe. Buncombe attained county status in 1792 and was named for Revolutionary War hero Colonel Edward Buncombe. In early 1800's roads were completed that connected East Tennessee to South Carolina through Asheville and the town began seeing regular commerce between the east and west.

Even the trauma of the Civil War could not extinguish Asheville's growing reputation as a health resort and in the 1800's "The Land Sky" was renowned throughout the country. Asheville reached the pinnacle of fame when George Vanderbilt bought 145,000 acres of what he described as the most beautiful land in the world and created the Biltmore Estate.

The depression of the 1930's, coupled with the end of the land boom, brought economic ruin to Asheville from which it recovered slowly. Even the depresssed 1930's saw the development of two great natural attractions; the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway - which have since made Asheville one of the most visited recreational areas in the world.

Today, Asheville is not only a major tourism hub, it is also a center for medical care, the arts, education and business in Western North Carolina.

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