OPINION by Sarah Kellogg: This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will finally release the first-ever rule regulating the storage and disposal of coal ash, a toxic byproduct of burning coal. For years, communities and environmental groups across the country have pushed the EPA to finalize the regulations, and now, due to a court ordered mandate, the […]
PRESS RELEASE Merging environmental organizations announce new name, logo ASHEVILLE—The boards and members of WNCA, ECO and the Jackson-Macon Conservation Alliance on Thursday night enthusiastically approved the new bylaws, board of directors, and new name and logo for their merging nonprofits. Effective at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2015, these three environmental organizations will legally […]
WHAT: “Around the World with 80 Strays,” 11th Annual Taste of Compassion Gala WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 15, 6-9:30 p.m. WHERE: Crowne Plaza Resort Expo Center, 1 Resort Drive WHY: For over 30 years, the Asheville Humane Society has saved homeless Buncombe County animals, and once a year the organization gives the public the chance to […]
PRESS RELEASE New website helps voters find local representatives’ voting record on fracking, make informed choice at the polls Asheville, N.C. — With Election Day weeks away and many voters still gathering information, a new, locally created website helps North Carolina voters easily identify where state and local legislators stand on fracking. FindYourFracker.org allows voters to search for local […]
Photographer Kate Durham sent Xpress photos and results from the Oct. 11 Red Bull Dreamline dirt-jumping event, including this shot.
I moved from metro D.C. to Buncombe County in 1976 as a “back-to-the-land flower child,” aspiring to off-the-grid homesteading along with my neighbors in Sandy Mush and Spring Creek. At first, my partner and I lived with the Gallimores at the eco-pioneering Long Branch Land Trust. But due to economic necessities, not to mention impending […]
By Jesse Hamm Folly Beach, S.C. is not only the official beach destination of most of Asheville, but the home of Americana roots-rockers Dangermuffin. According to the trio’s bio, their sound “encompasses ska, calypso, and even Southern rock, often within the same song.” And Relix wrote, “Just like many a funny named band before them […]
A 76-year-old structure is bound to have stories to tell.
For most people, their sense of “history” begins when they arrive somewhere. So, here is my history of the French Broad River and what has evolved along it since 1986, when I started working for RiverLink When I arrived in Asheville, I didn’t even know there was a river. The downtown was dead and scary, […]
Mountain Microenterprise Fund began in 1989 as a small demonstration project to a shortage of financing for small businesses, particularly those owned by women and minorities. MMF started out as part of Warren Wilson College’s Black Swan Center, which some may remember for its “Green Pages” directory of small businesses in Swannanoa/Black Mountain (the area’s […]
I was scrounging for a master’s in history from Western Carolina and buying beer at Cullowhee’s Speedwell General Store when there it was on the checkout counter: Green Line … a newspaper that, a few years later, became Mountain Xpress. Finally, here was a paper based on the environmental principles of the Green Party! It […]
I moved to Asheville — well, technically, Black Mountain — in the winter of ’83. It was pretty rough. The night I moved into my little no-insulation cottage, temps plunged to minus 50 with the wind chill. The pipes froze, the toilet cracked, and I tried in vain to stuff newspaper in places where the […]
Thank you for allowing me to share a bit of true Asheville history, at least my recollections of the origins of Asheville’s drumming and how the Pritchard Park drum circle came about. I was born and raised in Asheville. I was taught percussion at South French Broad Middle School. My love for percussion instruments has […]
I moved to Asheville in 1996 from Santa Barbara, Calif. We had a great drum circle community out there. Every Sunday at a park, down by the beach, from early afternoon until late in the night, we would gather and drum and dance and enjoy all the beauty there. I really missed the circle when […]
Remember when Stone Soup was the happening place to be seen eating lunch and the Gilberts greeted you with a smile every day with their homemade bread and soups? Remember when Wall Street was deserted (no foot traffic)? Self -Help Credit Union, with the help of Julian Price (and other donors) helped to rehab the […]
Moving from a wasteland of vacant, dirty streets, partial demolitions, lifeless buildings, and adult bookstores and theaters to the “top 10” lists in just about every category is truly a miracle. But we did it.
Does anyone remember the early 1990s in Asheville, a time when Bill Clinton was president, Jim Hunt the governor of North Carolina, and there wasn’t a parking or traffic problem at all? Mountain Xpress wouldn’t come into being until 1994, the year before Gannett Co. bought out the Asheville Citizen-Times. Fine cuisine? Mark Rosenstein had […]
It was my first prescribed burn. After weeks of training, and months of anticipation, I was finally on the ground – drip torch in hand – ready to apply fire to restore the mixed pine-hardwood forests at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, on the Grandfather Ranger District of Pisgah National Forest.
by Paul Clark The biggest challenge to making a movie about the busking scene in downtown Asheville, says Erin Derham, was knowing when to stop. New buskers cycled through town all summer, giving the filmmaker endless possibilities to flesh out her story on the subculture these musicians inhabit. Super-organized and deadline-oriented, Derham gave herself six months […]
The ‘90s in Asheville were definitely a decade of activism — of all sorts. One of the earliest projects was the revitalization of downtown, which took courageous leadership. The Green Line (precursor of Mountain Xpress) was publishing; Asheville-Buncombe Discovery was promoting downtown; the LGBT community was awakening; the environmental movement was fighting back with protests and demonstrations. I was involved in several of these activities, so know of them first-hand.
Downtown Asheville in the 1990s had a small-town America feel reminiscent of my own rural upbringing. You could count the chain stores on one hand, and quirky, lost-in-time businesses seemingly held dark, mysterious secrets ripped from the pages of a Southern Gothic novel.
