Poppy Handcrafted Popcorn is growing to include a flagship store on the South Slope. Plus: Appalachian Mountain Brewery opens in Mills River; u-pick season starts at Jeter Mountain Farm; and more.
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Poppy Handcrafted Popcorn is growing to include a flagship store on the South Slope. Plus: Appalachian Mountain Brewery opens in Mills River; u-pick season starts at Jeter Mountain Farm; and more.
The Orange Peel celebrate Halloween with a mock beauty pageant. Plus, Indigenous artists will create murals in downtown Asheville, Mills River hosts its first movie night and Black Mountain honors Roberta Flack.
With the notable exception of the IDA-certified dark sky park at the PARI in Transylvania County — one of only two such facilities in the state — no sky in Western North Carolina is untouched by light pollution. Central Asheville can reach as high as a 6 on the Bortle Scale, in which 1 is complete darkness and 9 is the Las Vegas Strip.
Western North Carolina bustled with electoral intrigue in 2021. From Woodfin, Asheville’s neighbor to the north, to the Jackson County seat of Sylva in the west, challengers bested incumbents in many nonpartisan town council and commission races.
“Brian Caskey, Democratic candidate for the Senate’s 48th District, is part of the Mills River team working to bring higher-paying jobs to our area.”
“We need a representative in Raleigh who will restore honor and integrity to the General Assembly and who will work in a bipartisan way to build a stronger North Carolina — one that does not leave our children’s education, our health and our environment behind.”
Incumbents were vulnerable in all five of the races in which they were challenged, with Democrats ousting Republicans in the city governments of Hendersonville and Saluda (which also lies partially in Polk County). Henderson County turnout was 18.4%, with 4,766 of 25,897 eligible voters casting their ballots.
Xpress reached out to candidates across the two counties to understand their motivations for participating in the municipal elections. Many of the topics the hopeful elected officials raised — diversity, transportation planning and preservation of small-town character — may give WNC politicos a sneak peak at what will be important to area voters in 2020.
“Brian’s been a force for change in this conservative stronghold. Mills River is now installing greenways, walking paths, solar panels, high-speed broadband and electric car chargers.”
In this two-part series, Xpress invites you on a guided a trip down the river as we examine the work of various communities to write the next chapter in the French Broad’s history, beginning with Transylvania and Henderson counties.
Mills River native Bradley Johnston has worked with cows all his life, but his newest venture — Mills River Creamery — is a departure from the high-volume wholesale dairy trade he used to practice. Johnston’s small herd of Jersey cows eat non-GMO feed and produce a type of milk that many find easier to digest than the usual supermarket fare.
AVL Beer Week 2017 presents a full roster of special releases, tap takeovers, festivals, dinners, parties and even some opportunities for yoga and bhangra dancing.
As a very dry fall moves toward winter, municipalities, officials, scientists, farmers and citizens all ponder the deepening effects of the drought in Western North Carolina.
The Mills River amphitheater can accommodate at least 700 people and, while tickets for the Thursday, Oct. 8 show sold out soon after it was first announced, it will still hopefully be a night for all visitors to remember.
Power giant Duke Energy’s proposal for a 45-mile transmission line through Western North Carolina, part of the company’s multifaceted Western Carolinas Modernization project to upgrade and integrate the mountains with a larger regional power grid, is meeting staunch opposition from residents since the company announced its intentions in mid-July.
UNC-TV recently took a video tour of the new Sierra Nevada major new brewery in Mills River. The brewery is now producing beer but is only open to the public on a limited basis. You can visit the gift shop or make reservations for a tour here. Sierra Nevada plans to open a taproom and […]
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Mills River announced today that it’s readying for a major hiring push to staff its new taproom and restaurant. According to an email from the company’s beer ambassador, Bill Manlely, the Chico, Calif.-based brewery is seeking to fill at total of 150 slots. “We’re looking to add an additional 150 staff members in both front-of-the-house, back-of-the-house and […]
With major new breweries in Transylvania, Henderson and Buncombe counties in the area, the sipsters are about to eclipse the hipsters. (Unless they are one and the same.)
Construction has begun on a new Ingles superstore on the corner of Mills River Road and Boyleston Highway.
I am grateful to the town of Mills River for providing a very nice new library and town hall (and soon a wonderful park) with high-speed Internet access available during weekday business hours. The library has been a big help to me as my work as a freelance writer and editor requires a high-speed connection. […]
Thousands of lime green cones stretched along steel cables at Echoview Farm in Weaverville and the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River on Saturday.