Black Mountain

Among the many communities in Western North Carolina that have within recent years thrown off the spirit of apathy and civic inertia, Black Mountain is one of the most progressive. Black Mountain is called the Front Porch of Western North Carolina because of the quick rise in elevation if you approach us from the east. Very few districts in the state were traversed with highways that offered more difficulties to the traveler than those of Black Mountain township. Not many villages in the state could at that time have greeted the ill-humored or pessimistic visitor with a more offensive mixture of sights, sounds and odors; or the optimistic and good-natured one, with a more humorous combination of these same things.

Cherry Street is a charming historic district transformed into wonderful shops and restaurants. The city of Asheville is just 20 miles to the West. We experience the four seasons with mild winters and cool summers.

Black Mountain History

The area known as the Swannanoa Valley has been a coveted spot for hundreds of years. The Cherokee Indians guarded the mountainous ridges while would-be settlers from Davidson's Fort (currently Old Fort) looked westward the game-filled forests. The Cherokee boundary was moved further west in the late 1780s, and settlers rapidly rushed through the Swannanoa Gap into the coves to establish homesteads beside clear brooks that abounded with fish and banks covered with rhododendron, laurel, azalea, and wild flowers that naturalists came from as far away as Europe to observe.

The trip into this mountainous region was a very rough one for many years. By 1850, there was a turnpike up the eastern mountains, evern covered with wooden planks, but with so steep a slope that wheels had to be larger on one side to make the journey up and switched to make the journey back down. Then, the railroad came in 1879, and tourists came to view these mountains, dated as some of the oldest in the world. In 1901, a lady visitor from New York had to see the "wild backwoods" and took about a six-hour horseback journey to Mount Mitchell and stayed in a cave-like shelter overnight to watch the sunrise. (Nearly all the people of Buncombe County drink their water from the mountain streams she saw.)

Other visitors also came, and the beauty of the area was noted by religious leaders who wanted their fellow church members to share their experiences in the area. Conference centers were established. Starting in the early 1900s with the Presbyterians in nearby Montreat, they were followed by the Baptists and the Y.M.C.A. Later came the Disciples of Christ, the African Methodist Episcopalians, the Freewill Baptists, and the Episcopalians.

With its rich history, Black Mountain naturally has become an antique searchers "heaven-on-earth." Antique shops dominate and evern the old original depot displays handicrafts and "nostalgia."

Interstate 40, which makes the mountains to the east easy to climb, cuts through this once quiet valley where self-sufficient people just a couple of hundred years ago lived in mud-daubed log cabins and cooked in open fireplaces the meat and vegetables they had raised or hunted. The old state coach stops have given way to old/new bed and breakfast homes, inns, a hotel, motels, and modern eating places.

Voted "Best Small Town in WNC 1997" by the residents of WNC.