Thanks to our partner, Buncombe County Public Libraries, our newspaper collection has gained a new title, the Mountain Xpress published in Asheville, North Carolina. This batch includes 68 issues of the paper from its very first “opener” issue in July 1994 to November 1995.

In their opener issue, they announce that the Mountain Xpress is a paper people will “reach for with pleasure and anticipation, every week, for free; a paper that tells you what’s going on and what’s going down, that knows how to be lively, outspoken, authoritative and fair; a paper that is uniquely Western North Carolinian [July 1, 1994, page 3].” In addition to providing comprehensive calendars of events, the Mountain Xpress includes reports on local news written by professional and nationally recognized, WNC journalists.

Highlighting the beauty of the North Carolina Arboretum in their April 5, 1995 issue, the paper breaks their typical pattern of published predominately in black and white. Along with highlighting the arboretum as a whole, the feature details the construction and history of what becomes the North Carolina Arboretum. The land the arboretum is built on is referred to as Bent Creek and was inhabited by Native Americans around 14,000 years ago. The Cherokee visited a seasonal camp there into the 1830s before “Colonel W. H. Thomas persuaded them to relinquish the area [April 5, 1995, page 14].” Once the land was vacated, white settlers bought and worked the land until it was mostly an eroded watershed. Years later, George Vanderbilt bought the Bent Creek watershed as an addition to his Biltmore Estate. He used it to experiment with the the newly developing German scientific forestry methods at the time.

The land was purchased from Vanderbilt in 1917 to be part of the Pisgah National Forest. With the Bent Creek Research Forest established in 1921, restoration of eroded fields and replanting trees continues into the 1930s. A majority of this restoration work was completed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, specifically the individuals who worked at CCC Vance.

In 1984, local civic leaders in Buncombe County, garden groups, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill managers, submitted a proposal for an arboretum in the Asheville area. Recognizing the value it would have in the western part of the state, the North Carolina General Assembly allotted $250,000 for the development and building of an arboretum. The Bent Creek site was chosen from 25 candidates in the region, but won because the area was unrestricted by urban development; accessible to attractions such as the Blue Ridge Parkway and Biltmore Estate; it formed its own watershed; and, of course, the land was “free” (available from the federal government on a long-term lease). Today, the North Carolina Arboretum boasts 65 acres of cultivated gardens along with 10+ miles of hiking and biking trails, rotating exhibits, a variety of family-friendly nature activities.

To learn more about Buncombe County Public Libraries, visit their website here.

To view more materials from Buncombe County Public Libraries, visit their contributor page here.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, visit our newspaper collection here.

To learn more about the North Carolina Arboretum, visit their website here.