A new exhibit at Mars Hill University’s Rural Heritage Museum, titled “How the West Was Won: Trains and the Transformation of Western North Carolina, 1880-1937,” documents the engineering achievements and mortal sacrifices that marked the coming of the railroad to the area.
The Asheville Humane Society is offering a special “Patriotic Pitties” adoption promotion on Friday, June 26 and Saturday, June 27 in celebration of the Fourth of July. All pitt bulls will be available for an adoption fee of only $10, according to an official press release from the organization. The price includes spay and neutering, […]
The Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site begins its 2015 summer programs this week with live performances and demonstrations of the poet and historian’s work, home life, and guided tours of his estate, “Connemara”. The summer session, which began on Wednesday, June 24, offers plays, demonstrations, and historic walks around the 264 acre park through […]
A collaboration of public and private organizations have announced an upcoming Native Marketplace art show and demonstration, to be held Saturday, July 11 at the Asheville Art Museum, located at 2 South Pack Square in downtown Asheville. The event will run in the afternoon from 12 p.m. until 5 p.m., and will feature work from […]
The National Park Service will host a special release event for the commemorative Blue Ridge Parkway quarter today in Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville, beginning at 10 a.m. The newly minted currency will depict a scene from the North Carolina section of the parkway on the reverse side, complete with the state flower, as […]
Western North Carolina is now home to a growing number of craft distillers making legal moonshine. Blending traditional recipes with new technology and methods, these pioneers are bringing Appalachia’s most fabled and misunderstood product into the 21st century, changing cultural perceptions even as they adapt to shifting economic realities.
The Great Smoky Mountains Association has announced an upcoming “Meet the Author” event with children’s author and illustrator Lisa Horstman on June 27 at the Sugarlands Visitor Center in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Horstman, the author and illustrator of popular children’s tales such as The Great Smoky Mountain Salamander Ball and Fast Friends, will […]
The city of Asheville has announced a series of drilling projects along Lyman Street and Riverside Drive in the River Arts District. Drilling began Tuesday, June 16, and is expected to continue for the next four weeks. The purpose of the drilling, according to Asheville’s Planning & Multimodal Transportation Communication Specialist Joey Robison, is to […]
National pizza giant and Asheville favorite Mellow Mushroom has released its second annual “Homegrown Picks” menu, which will be available at all Mellow Mushroom locations through June 30. The special menu is culled from a poll of Mellow Mushroom employees at its 170-plus locations, in which servers, bartenders, prep and line cooks suggest new food […]
Organizers of the “Talking Dirty” event, held every Wednesday at Rose’s Garden Shop in conjunction with the Asheville School of Wine, have announced that the weekly meeting will be on hiatus for the summer season. The hour-long event, which Xpress detailed in a January 19 article, provides an opportunity for attendees to discuss the importance […]
Amid escalating use and abuse of opioids nationwide, the number of local narcotics-related overdoses has increased rapidly in recent years. The drug naloxone can temporarily suspend those drugs’ effects, and the Asheville metropolitan area leads the state in confirmed cases of opioid overdose reversal, according to the N.C. Harm Reduction Coalition.
Conservation groups like the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy need the support of residents and local businesses in order to achieve their work. Building on this co-dependence, the nonprofit will hold its annual “Land Trust Day” celebration Saturday, June 6.
In her landmark 1955 book, The French Broad, Asheville author Wilma Dykeman said the river was “above all, a region of life, with all the richness and paradox of life.” She described a watershed rich in flora and fauna, ranging from the “fertile fields and gentle fall” through Transylvania and Henderson counties to the sudden “plunge between steep mountains” around Asheville, “strewn with jagged boulders.”
Two alumni of Western Carolina University will be coming back to campus to kick off the university’s 2015 Summer Concert Series at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 11, when Asheville-based American Gonzos take the stage. Both Andrew Thelston, guitarist and lead singer, and bassist Michael Dean are members of WCU’s 2009 graduating class. Together with […]
Can a convicted felon be innocent, even if the trial has passed, the evidence is in, and the accused has been sentenced to die? Asheville’s Different Strokes Performing Arts Collective will address this questions in its latest show of the 2015 season—Bruce Graham’s Coyote on a Fence—beginning June 4 at The Be Be Theatre in […]
The JB Media Institute will kick off their Summer Session in Asheville next week on June 9 with in-person classes centered around marketing in the digital age. The Institute, part of the JB Media Group—an Asheville-based online marketing company— is now in its third year, and seeks to provide “a comprehensive internet marketing training program,” […]
If you happened to miss the River Arts District Studio Stroll earlier this month, the artists at Riverview Station are giving the public another chance to visit their workspace on Saturday, June 13. “Traditionally, the official Studio Stroll has been held in June, up until this past Spring,” says Jeri Bartley, one of the artists […]
City plans to improve infrastructure, expand public space, increase access and encourage private development in the River Arts District have triggered considerable controversy. Xpress reached out to the city, RAD business and property owners, and organizations involved in the now flourishing area’s revitalization to try to answer some key questions.
In a city as musically diverse as Asheville, it’s easy to be picky about what bands and musical genres you pay to see. Seldom does a concertgoer find a crowd as diverse as the one that came out to The Orange Peel for Youtube-sensation-turned-touring act Scott Bradlee and Post-Modern Jukebox.
Identifying the challenges facing the Future I-26 project is fairly straightforward; implementing the needed improvements is more complicated. So how does an ordinary highway become an interstate? And when might the stretch north of downtown Asheville make the interstate grade?
Experience Music, a local organization which facilitates the tutelage of young musicians in the Asheville area, has announced a joint show with local legends Phuncle Sam on Friday, May 22 at Pisgah Brewing Company in Black Mountain, NC. The event will feature Infinite Vortex, a six-piece rock n’ roll band made up of Experience Music’s […]
