“Notwithstanding the pontifications of the City Council and their attorney, the Vance Monument was a gift to the people of Asheville, largely paid for by Vance’s friend George Willis Pack, on property donated by Pack on the condition that it be retained forever.”
The five story brick structure, the paper wrote, “is fitted out with all the most modern and convenient improvements.” Features included electric lighting, steam heating and ventilators in the ceilings of all cells.
On Jan. 2, 1919 the Pack Memorial Public Library opened on Pack Square.
On Aug. 31, 1906, Asheville mourned the loss of George Willis Pack.
Pack Square lies at the center of Asheville’s sense of itself as a city, but recent attention to the area — and the monuments to Confederate figures located there — has highlighted a curious anomaly of history and law: No one can say for sure who owns the piece of land where the Vance Monument sits.
