Bonus Episode: The History of Asheville

Historian and Ashville native Kevan Frazier has seen a lot of the city's changes -- and he’s studied the rest. Here's our more-or-less full intereview with Kevan, covering how Asheville went from railroad stop to health resort to Beer City, USA.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Saber. I'm an Eeries and I'm
Lauren foc Obam and today we've got a bonus episode
for you. We do because Saturday, Saturday is all right
for a bonus interview. Yeah, yeah, you like my song
that I just kind of I like reading songs. I
had a whole idea for a series where you would
just like have a conversation based on song lyrics. I

(00:31):
think it could work. I think it would be hilarious.
Oh man, all right, putting this in our in our
ideas for terrible podcasts podcast, I think it's excellent podcast.
But okay, we can quibble over that later. Um. As
you know, we went to Asheville and we interviewed so
many people, and we've got so much great content that
we thought we would run interviews in their entirety almost

(00:55):
just about yeah and let you get the full feel
of what folks said. Of course, we will be pulling,
you know, the particularly relevant quotes from them into our episodes.
But yeah, today we're giving you the interview that we
did with Kevin Frasier, who is a historian in Asheville.
He's the executive director of West Carolina University. Programs in Asheville. Yeah,

(01:17):
he also owns I believe owns a board game bar cafe.
Board game cafe played that. I am still upset. We
did not get to play any board games. Oh I know,
or get their Their cocktail list looked really good. Um.
He's also the founder of Asheville by Foot, which is
a guided tour company around downtown Asheville, and the author

(01:38):
of Legendary Locals of Asheville, which is a book about
Ashville's history. M hmmm. And he very well could be
in his own book or another, maybe the sequel one
day someone als will write it, because you don't really
want to include yourself, I guess. Yeah, that's a little
bit gosh, a little a little bit. And we wanted
to start with this one because while we did go
on a much anticipated and enjoyed comedy store, that was

(02:01):
a great foundation for information. He was the historian we
went to to put the history of Asheville in context.
So he's kind of less about food and more about history.
But it was very useful when we're trying to understand
how Asheville the food scene, in the beer scene, how
it became what it is. So this is much more
history focus, but very fascinating. It is. Oh yeah, we

(02:22):
couldn't help but present it to you because we loved
it so much and we hope you enjoy it. So
I grew up in Ashville, and when I grew up
in Nashville, this was not the place to be. It
was a really rough town. It was a city in
the nineteen seventies that really completely collapsed at that point
because of suburbanization, but because of a weak financial position

(02:45):
it had been in since the Great Depression, and so
things were most most of the buildings were boarded up.
Uh you know. The highlights were pawn shops and porn
stores and porn theaters. I've got a great photograph from
nineteen eighty five, as late as eighty five of the
Fine Arts Theater, which is one of our independent film theaters,
and the two features that day where Sassy Sue and

(03:05):
three on the waterbeds. Those are not allowed by law
in North Carolina any more, have not been for many years.
But it was just it was a place your mom
told you that you hadn't lost anything, you didn't need
to go back to find. You just avoided downtown. I
grew up in these parts and then I went to
college at unc Ashville and then went away to grad

(03:28):
school and ended up I went away to study African history,
of all things, and I did, and I still teach
African history now man. But I got interested in the
history of cities, in the history of American cities, and
happened to trip across a follow by the name of
John Nolan, who is one of the first professional city
planners in the United States, and happened to do a
project in Nashville in the nineteen twenties. And it's a

(03:49):
crucial project, his plan for Ashville, which was a very
early plan. I mean, we just think of city planning
is part of city government, and the teens in twenties,
cities hired a planner like you and I'd hired an architect.
It was a contractual kind of thing. It's not to
act to World War Two. They become part of civic government.
So it was sort of a big deal to hire him.
As he was. It was expensive affair, and Asheville ends

(04:10):
up putting this comprehensive playing together and then really following it,
you know, saidies do those and they put him on
the shelf and say big deal. But the city actually
did something. It set on it for a few years,
but by did a great deal with it, and so
I was starting started studying this guy, and then started
studying Nashville and looking at urban Appalachia, which some people

(04:32):
thought was sort of anoxy moron, but you know, from
us to Rowano to Frankly Pittsburgh, you know there are
significant parts of Appalachia that are urbanized. And uh So
I studied that and then came back and actually ended
up on the faculty of my alma mater, uh in
teaching history at u n C Ashville, and did that
for many years and then got into a university administration.

(04:53):
Still do that, and my main work is I um
worked for Western Carolina University, which is one of the
sixteen public colleges in North Carolina. The main campus is
an hour west in Jackson County school Boy eleven thousand,
regional kind of Prancis, but we also have a graduate
campus on the south side of Ashville, and I managed
that for the university and with that still do a

(05:15):
lot of talks about Ashville history because I just I
love an underdog, and this is one of the few
underdogs I've ever supported that actually won and has been victorious.
So that's been been great. And then, um, in addition
to well play, I own uh the walking to our
company here in town called Ashville by Foot, and we've
got great guides that lead folks around and tell them
stories about Ashville and the architecture. So that's sort of

(05:37):
my background. Uh, you were talking a little bit about
the city planning that went on in the twenties. Is
that where we got all of the beautiful deco architecture downtown?
It is? And I'll actually I like just a couple
of steps back, just to give you a whole little framework.
Ashville just starts off as a little sort of trading
post u uh, stopover point for livestock drovers in the

(05:59):
late seven teen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, folks who
were raising animals up in eastern Tennessee, mainly on their
way to market in South Carolina. Uh, we're coming through
Asheville and so much of what's the central business district today.
We're big boarding houses with livestock pins in the back, place,
secure animals, dry, place to lay your head, you know,
a couple of hot meals, and you headed down the mountain. Uh,

(06:21):
Ashville's remoteness kept it very secluded for many years. It
kept it protected during the Civil War, Sherman was never
gonna march through Ashville. But then after the war in
eighteen eighty, the railroad finally comes to Asheville, and there's
a group of local physicians actually that began to build
Ashville as a resort community, a place to come for
whatever ailed you. Fresh mountain air for pretty moderate seasons,

(06:43):
pretty even temperatures. It's never especially hot for long here,
especially cold here. And there are also a number of
hot and warm mineral springs around the Ashville area. And
so we began to see a lot of folks coming
out of the industrial heartland in the north, you know,
the Philadelfia and New York, Boston who were would take
the train and come down to Asheville, and they were

(07:05):
coming for two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks,
which also tells us, you know, the folks who would
come to Nshville were people are pretty significant means, and
also the middle class, while burgeoning, still pretty small in
this period, paid vacations another fifty years in the future.
So these are people of wealth coming to Ashville. Ashville
by the eighties and nineties had build a pretty significant
tourism trade. One of the key things that we were

(07:27):
very attractive to pulmonary patients, folks with lung conditions. We
sort of laugh about that today Nashville, because anybody who
moves to Asheville knows if there's something to be allergic
to in North America, it grows here. Allergy season can
be tough for new newcomers, but were particularly popular with
tuberculosis patients, to the point before the end of the

(07:48):
century we had garnered the reputation as the tuberculosis capital
of the country. Exactly. You know, if you're writing the
Chamber of Commerce brochure for the city, you probably don't
want it to say you got tb come on down
to Asheville. So there's a bit of a battle between
hospitality and medicine, and they battle it out, and in

(08:09):
the end, frankly, hospitalities got more political cloud and they
pretty much legislate that out of business. So ashe was
got a prett stiff tourism trade, and it's folks a
wealth and that's how the Vanderbilts get here. I always
thought growing up as a kid that it was really
strange how did these folks ever find Ashville? Well, the
truth is the folks of the Vanderbilt social class had
been coming to Ashville. What brought them here was one

(08:34):
of the youngest of the Vanderbilts, George Vanderbilt. His mother
contracted malaria, which are much more common than than today
even in New York City. And he was the youngest
grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who originates the Vanderbilt family of fortune.
He was a He grew up on a farm in
Staten Island, but then ended up being one of the
so called robber barons of the railroad age. It made

(08:55):
him a ridiculously, ridiculously wealthy man. And his youngest grandson
was was George. And so George and his mother come
here in a friend of the family, I fellow named
Frank Cox, owned resort hotel that was just not very
far from where we're at right now, and invited to
come and spend the been part of the summer. And

(09:15):
while they were here there on horseback ride and came
to a beautiful view of Mount Pisgo, which is out
to the west. That's our biggest peak in the county.
And he's tells and at least. The legend is he
tells his mother said, We've had such a great time
in Nashville that I'd like to build a summer retreat,
a little place that the family can escape the hustle
and bustle of New York. We were at the at

(09:37):
the Belmore earlier today. So absolutely, I mean, you know,
in the end, he thought he was gonna build a
little modest Italian villa and then gets inspired to build
a French chateau, and in the end it's you know,
not only is it the largest house in the United States,
it's one of the largest privately owned homes ever in history.
You know, there are there's only a handful of larger

(09:59):
houses in the world. They are typically owned by monarchy,
like Windsor Palace, or the state formerly owned by a monarchy,
like for Sia or something like. I mean, even Windsor
is not that much bigger than when you take the
cathedral off, than uh than Bill Moore is. Maybe Bill
was four and a half acres of interior floor space.
I mean, it's like nine nine average American homes fit

(10:22):
in the banquet hall. I mean, it's crazy. How did that? Yeah,
we we were I feel like at least one of
one of the like the breakfast dining room, uh that
we were in. Dylan said, like, I'm trying to think
of how many of my apartments would have fit in
this single room, the one with the leather wall paper,

(10:42):
to you know, just a little something to do. What's crazy.
Here's the funny part. George was arguably the poorest of
the Vanderbilts, clearly all relative because he was the youngest.
But the big thing was when his dad passed his
brother those are almost twenty years as senior. So there's

(11:03):
a big gap between the eight kids. The the three
oldest brothers, four sisters, and then him, And so when
the time came to run the business, they did. He's
still a kid. He never worked a day in his life.
He didn't have to. He had significant inheritance and trust
and perpetuity from his grandfather and his father, and that
let him be a man of letters too. He was

(11:24):
very well learned. He read and spoke eight different languages.
He was ridiculously well traveled. He they know today that
he made more than fifty trips to Europe in his lifetime.
I mean that's a lot of him by today standards
and when you can catch a flight and be there
and exactly all by ship. And so he, you know,
he decides to build this house here and uh and

(11:47):
I think his mother was very excited about it, and
I think part of the reason was he was in
his he was moving towards his late twenties, and he's
not married, which is a little long long in the
tooth in that day. Absolutely, it's a great way to
be seen as an eligible bachelor. It takes almost six
years to build it. He moves in Eve still not married,
much to his mother's chagrin, but he will marry uh

(12:08):
In Edith Stipenson, dresser from an old New York family.
His best buddy will introduce them at a party in Paris,
and so she'll become the lady of the land and
h Billmore's their primary home, but they also had houses
in New York and d c. And Paris. In fact,
their house in New York's the only surviving Vanderbilt mansion.

(12:29):
All the rest have been torn down, and it's for
Sauchi's headquarters on a Bullmore Bullomo. There was a couple
of Thames. It adds to the cache because so now
people followed the Vanderbilts like we follow Hollywood stars today.
I mean, even you're in podunc Usa, some there was

(12:51):
something in your newspaper about the Vanderbilt. So that became
a big deal to to come here. And even if
you didn't know the Vanderbilts, you know, you can tell
you he oh, we're going to ash when we're where
the Vanderbilts live. We don't know the Vanderbilts. We're not
staying with the Vanderbilts in their thirty two guest rooms,
but we're gonna be there, and so that just increases
the cash at the other thing is that's really important

(13:12):
to us is there were a group of artisans, architects
and craftsmen that came to work a bit more who
were here for so long that they stayed. They basically
built new lives here, and that's why Ashville's got such
a great architectural collection that's much more substantial than most
cities this size have. We'll see Ashville really begin to

(13:35):
explode by the teens. Just give an example, the population changes.
Eight ninety the population was ten only ten thousand by
nineteen hundred, grown to sixteen thousand nineteen twenty. Were had
already twenty eight thousand, and in the ten years of
the so called Roaring twenties nearly doubles to well over
fifty thousand, which today you're like, oh, that's not a
big city. Fifty thousand. Actually, when you look at the

(13:55):
early twentieth century and you look at cities, particularly in
the South, and how they are evolving, to be at
that kind of growth rate in a short period was
very much assigned. It was on the path to being
a major city. And there develops a bit of what
I refer to as urban patriotism in Ashville that you know,
you got to be for Ashville. We're we're in for Ashville.
And one of the ways was this program for Progress,

(14:18):
which was based on that John Nolan planned the city Planner,
and that creates a whole explosion in growth in Ashville.
And one of the features becomes this interest in Art
Deco architecture. The first major building is the first Baptist
Church that Doug Ellington, North Carolina born, but at that
time Pittsburgh based architect did uh dugged us several buildings

(14:42):
in Ashville, and there are many others. One of the
we have one of the largest surviving collections of our deco.
It's not the biggest in the country. But one of
the things that's different saying like Miami is we've got
pretty much the full spectrum, from the very early becoming
more ornamented, looks a little bit like Art Nouveau as
it transitions all the way through the really highly ornamented,

(15:05):
like our City Hall is a beautiful, stunning example of that,
or the old sm W Cafeteria building from I mean
it's it's as quintessential as you get in that style,
all the way to the later period, which is a
little more what thereferred to as boilerplate. That it's it's
sort of layered architecture and starts looking like internationalism or

(15:26):
modernism as it becomes much less ornament So you can
see the whole the whole range here. But Ashville, because
of that program for Progress, really started going to this
wild building spree, preparing for being a major southern if
not a major East Coast city, and they began to
just invest and invest. They did nineties seven projects from

(15:48):
Nolan's plan, and all of that was funded in less
than four years through municipal bonds. So by the time
the stock market crashes and then a couple of years later,
the bank that owned that had held the city's money crashes.
The city in the county had a combined munic will
have more than fifty four million. It's a lot, and
to put in perspective today, that's seven eighty million dollars

(16:10):
for a town of fifty thousand, and in fact, it
was the largest per capita debt of any city in
the country. What's wild is by nineteen thirty two, when
most cities have started to declare bankruptcy, UH default on
their bonds, ash for refuses to default on the bonds.
Refuses to declare bankruptcy. So you know, we're good at
blatching stock. We pay our bills. And that's true. But

(16:32):
also know a lot of the guys in power own
those municipal bonds and if they didn't get their money,
then maybe their grandchildren would and that's who would. It
took Ashville nearly fifty years to repay those Depression ARA
bonds off and in the end, and it does so
on UH June nineteen seventy six, and then three days
later has a big bond burning ceremony as a sign

(16:54):
that the city had had paid it all off. It's
the only city in American history actually to will pay
all of its depression their bonds off, so something we're
proud of. But what it did is it crippled the city.
So for much of the twentieth century, the city that
had been on this New York rist comes to Meteork crash,
and even after World War Two, while the rest of
the Sun bolt south, from Los Angeles to Atlanta to

(17:14):
Phoenix to um Miami, they're all growing by leaps and bounds,
we're only not growing. We actually recede in population. The
weird thing is, though, is the county will grow, particularly
as northern industry comes south. Cheap land, low cost labor,
very modest presence of unions that brings a lot of
that down and and our county, Bunkom County, would see that.

(17:35):
But the city itself remains very small. In fact, the
state wouldn't let it EnEx because it owed all this money,
and so it keeps it real tight for a number
of years. That's why even today, you'll go to old
neighborhoods and we're just putting sidewalks in the first time,
and the neighborhood's been there only hundred years. But we
send any money to invest. But the other thing was

(17:57):
we didn't have any money to tear anything down either,
and that's why so much of our historic fabrics still intact.
In Nashville. Things go really south by the nineties seventies
with suburbanization, though, and that was not just us, that
was ever even you know, Philadelphia, New York are really
getting hit heart as folks abandoned the city and they're

(18:18):
out in the suburbs and shopping malls and shopping centers
come up, and the same thing happens in Nashville. And
once the department stores left the downtowns, the critical massive
people's gone, so there's not folks to go to the
boutique shops and the restaurants and the theaters and all that,
and so you end up like we did Nashville with
a pretty much an abandoned downtown. But almost as quickly

(18:39):
as we left, we had leaders that came back and said, well,
you know, why don't we turn the misfortune of the
Great Depression into our fortune today? All this stuff still
here and began about fifteen years before the rest of
the country came back to the city. Ashville came back
to its city um and by the mid eighties. It
initiates up period we refer to him luckily as the

(19:00):
Ashill Renaissance, and I argue that goes to about it's
about a thirty year period because at this point we've
revitalized and now it's what's next for us. We're not
recovering u broken downtown. We we've done that work. Now
what's next. And so you know, it's like you look
across the street and you see new condo towers going in,

(19:20):
a new apartment buildings and things like that. Sup frank
We play above our weight class and a lot of
different things like food and drink being really on the
top of that. The music scene. Our music scene is
not what a town our size has at all. I mean,
we see major national and regional acts come through, and
I think part of that is where we're pretty close

(19:40):
to Atlanta, We're close to Riley, we're close to Nashville.
How we're going close to Birmingham for that matter, relatively.
And because of that, I think folks going through and
I think, frankly, they make a little Baycake coming to Nashville.
We'll play, we'll make our money, and then we'll get
to plus. Our venues are smaller and sometimes even big bands.
You remember, like a few years ago Smashing Pumpkins decided
to do sort of a new tour and they did

(20:01):
six dates in Ashville. They were in three cities. They
were like d C, San Francisco, and Ashville, and they
filled up in like fifteen minutes of being like but
partly they you know, they're like, we play a lot
of arenas, but sometimes it's nice to be with the people,
and so they're there with you know, they're like in
a place like the Orange Bill with folks. So and

(20:23):
then there's too great, really highly reputed national recording studios
here in Ashville, and so we see a lot of
folks in the recording business come to do to do
their work here in town. Stargazing is pretty easy Nashville.
You always sort of on any weekend see somebody and
people are starting. They're really funny, they're real good about it.
They don't really bother folks. But then you'll hear something

(20:45):
on the radio and be like, I was just at
the bed bathroom on I saw Glad It's night and
she was buying sheets. Okay, I think it's time for
an ad break. We'll be back after a quick word
from our sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor, and

(21:10):
back to the interview. It sounds like Ashville has always
been a tourist town that a lot of here, Yeah,
tourists in health town. And so it's so interesting that
you said medicine. Um, I assume that you mean like
corporations and not the kind of um, you know, snake
oil kind of stuff that was probably going on in
the Victorian era. And for us, we've got a very

(21:31):
robust healthcare network. Our biggest employers are health Care System
Mission Healthcare eleven employees. I mean, they're the biggest employee
this side of North Carolina. Actually part of that, we've
been such a popular retirement community too, and throughout western
North Carolina, first with the so called Greatest Generation and
now with the baby boomers. Uh, there's a lot moving in. However,

(21:52):
we were at points last year that millennials were moving
into Ashville at a rate of five to one over
baby boomers. We've just become real to somethings and wanting
to move to ash What they like, the vibe, that
like the lifestyle. Uh, and even you know, now later
millennial says they're starting to think about raising kids that
you can. Ash One was a great place you can
do that and not have to jump back into maybe

(22:15):
what your stereotype perception of raising kids were when you
were you know, when your parents raised you and that
kind of thing that you can still sort of mix
all that. I mean, you know part of it as
you see families at the Brewer results. So that's a
pretty common common affair are are. But it's you know,
like that our whole food and drink scene bust had
emerged out of the nineties in Ashville that we actually

(22:39):
go back even back to the right at the late
seventies in the early eighties, particularly one chef Mark Rosenstein.
Mark opened to restaurant called The Marketplace which is now
a Wall Street but used to be on Market Street,
and um food storians really consider Mark in that group
of the original farm to table founders around the country.
He was a very a pioneer in what came to

(23:01):
be called farm to table, and now farm to table
is so common in Asheville. We don't really call anything
farm to table. That's just like calling it food. It's
just it was like used to I grew a garden
and had a little a little raised bed gardens in
the back and one time it's like, why am I
doing this? We have all this great organic process. I
literally go down the street. Um, we've got tailgate markets

(23:26):
almost every day of the week throughout the city, and
so it's just a great food scene. But most of
most of that started to mature in the nineties. And
then you will met with Lea about her dad Oscar,
and Oscar is really very much the one that kicks
off crap brewing in North Carolina. One of the key
folks kicks it off on the East coast. You know,

(23:46):
I think when Oscar opened Highland, I think they were
like fifty breweries in America. It's over five thousand now.
He said he used to have a hard time to
even getting bottles, Like the first time he called to
get a bottle order, you know, he needed so many
thousand bottles and they didn't even know what to do.
I mean that they were used to, you know, Anahizer
Bush column and we need a million bottles or something

(24:06):
like that. So earlier, and the great thing to that,
and I don't know if he wouldn't talk about it himself,
but Oscar grew the industry by being cooperative he always
built an air of cooperation between brewers. He was never
threatened as other brewers opened, but just pulled them in
and grew the industry as well as his business. Brewing's

(24:28):
really cooperative, I mean naturally it is, and I think
part of that um is very much um seen in Nashville.
I mean, you go to any place and they've done
cooperative beer making with somebody down the street, I mean
their competitors. But nobody views it that way. Uh our
you know, we actually have a a beer editor. You
know how many cities have a beer editor? Right? T H. S.

(24:50):
And Tony was saying maybe to me about a year
ago that in an agave weeks about three d fifty
different varieties of beer being brewed Nashville, which is crazy.
I mean, it's a lot beer and part of it too.
Oscar is one of the points. I said, you know,
we've got the critical massive breweries now and some of
the big national craft players like Oscar, Blue and New
Belgium and Sierra Nevada. But he said, the other thing

(25:11):
is we have really good water in Ashville. We have
a lot of it. So that's so we've seen that
grow both brewing and now distilling actually as becoming more
and more popular in ash One throughout North Carolina as
well and beyond. You know, sort of that moonshine kind
of corn liquor stuff. But everything from RUMs Tomorrow's to

(25:31):
Gen's and Geneva's and whatnot. There was that dearth of
of of brewing that was held over from UM. Was
that all held over from prohibition, right, and some of
that's even more challenging in North Carolina. That UM what
grew crap growing more recently was when Northlina didn't make

(25:52):
a major change to go to high gravity beers. Frankly,
until the high gravity beers, it wasn't um. It just
wasn't economically viable for most to think about having breweries
because you were really limited in the in the kinds
of things you could could brew. And so that that's
made a big difference. The state has been a little slow,
but has been coming around. I mean, this was a

(26:13):
state that went dry before the rest of the country
went dry, back before Prohibition, and then it sort of struggled.
I mean, we didn't have what was called liquor by
the drink and Ashville, so I think like seventy eight
seventy nine, we didn't even have national chain restaurants because
no nobody, uh, none of those would come because they
had you know, they had bars. That's where the profit
margins aut. I mean, I remember when Red Lobster opened

(26:36):
up and people act like it was the second Coming
of Christ, and they're like, oh my gosh, red Lobster
here in Ashville. And nothing bad against Red Lobster. But
you know today people are sort of any know when
we make a little leap, when we secretly go to
chain restaurants. We just don't tell people. You know, every
everybody's got the chain restaurant they go to and their

(26:58):
buddy they go with, and they just don't. You just
don't say I'm going to the Olive Garden or whatever.
You know, you just you just go because I got
the bread sticks and whatnot for those cheddar Bay biscuits
at the Red Lobster, I mean delicious. Um. We we were,
we were saying earlier, how strange it is, especially coming
from Atlanta, which is a very corporate town, um, you know,

(27:21):
with with Coca Cola and all of those other big
corporations having their headquarters there, coming here and not really
seeing many large corporate chains anywhere near downtown, like I
think I've counted, oh, I don't know, or Taco Farmburger
and Farmburger and those are small. Those are small chains. Yeah,

(27:42):
Like even even in terms of clothing stores, like I
think I saw an Urban Outfitters, but that was like,
that's the biggest name that I've seen. There's an anthropology
around the corner. Both of them took a big hit
when they opened. But I mean there was some protests
about national chains being downtown US. There's no Starbucks down
town though. The word is they've really have been looking
hard to find a spot. But you know, there's like

(28:04):
fifteen Starbucks out in the county, so you can still
go go do all that. But even out in the county,
it's not even as much of a hard split as
it used to be by downtown versus out in the
in the verbs, the burbs have got great stuff now too.
Sometimes they've got second locations of downtown. What's getting funny
is we've got some of our great restaurants have now
started to expand around as well. To blow Honey is

(28:25):
a great example. Um where I'm having dinner to night, Chaipani,
there's a decator. Have you been to the Decator one.
They're fantastic and Marwanti just I mean he was up
for the James Beard this year on Indian Street Food.
How awesome is that? And it's funny you'll hear people
it's not people are name dropping. It's still a small town.
You know. The folks people say, oh yeah, I love

(28:47):
going to Katie Button's place, and you know they're telling
like going to Crane, which is probably one of the
most beloved restaurants in town. You can it's one of
those it's very popular with visitors, is still popular with
locals as well, and you know it's a three or
four week wait to get a little reservation to get in.
It's so interesting that you that you studied uh African

(29:07):
history that you still teach it, because I wanted to
ask about It's weird coming from Atlanta, um, which is
such an integrated population, and coming to hear where it
seems like there are very few people of color and
it still is a Southern city, like a lot of
the a lot of the foods, a lot of the
culture is Southern. But I mean it's Appolachian too. But yeah,

(29:29):
could you could you speak a little bit to why
that is sure. So you know, inherently Asheville has a
smaller African American population, even going back to mid nineteenth
century history. And part of that had to do that
there was not significant plantation agriculture in western North Clina
just because the landscape, unlike the eastern part of Akolina,

(29:49):
whre they had these gigantic farms. But that does not
mean there was not slavery in western arth Calina. That
becomes a real misunderstanding and and I think sometimes people
want sort of skip them be like, oh, yeah, we
somehow we're better than that. No. No, as a region,
we've not been better than that. And and there was
word sleeves, but the number was smaller, and that has

(30:10):
definitely been part of that inheritance. That said, though, after
the Civil War, we were a very popular city for
freedmen to relocate to. They were drawn to Asheville looking
for new opportunities. There were folks like Isaac Dixon. Isaac
was this amazing bootstrap story of this fella who you know,
sort of comes at Nickel in his pocket, starts working

(30:32):
mainly for the Patent family, I believe, which was an
old Ashville family, and starts his own businesses and then
gets very concerned about African American school kids are mainly
their winning schools for them to go to, particularly after
the infamous plus e versus Ferguson, you know, the codified
jim Co laws, And in a story that we still
don't fully understand, he gets appointed to the school board.

(30:53):
I cannot imagine there are many African Americans on Southern
school boards at the turn of the twenty century. And
he gets the city to to build schools. Um they
were segregated schools, but schools for African American UH students,
and and so with that there's a it's an intriguing heritage. UM.
In the nineteen sixties, there were students at the then

(31:16):
all black high school, stevens Lee High School, who were
so inspired by those four amazing young men at Northlina
and t University that started to sit in movement at
to Warlworth in Greensboro, and they did the same thing,
and they formed a score of the Asheville Student Committee
on Racial Equality and began in the nineteen sixty one
their own campaign of desegregation to really great success over

(31:38):
about a four year period. And so we've definitely had
really important and strong leadership that carries through. Population wise,
though in the city it's about half of what the
average population in North Carolina about twenty six percent of
all North Collinians or of African descent, and Ashville it's

(31:58):
about thirteen percent of all lash Villains are of U
are of African descent. One of the challenges that we're
very concerned about is some of our key areas that
have begun to see more recent about revitalization or new
development are adjacent to historically African American neighborhoods, and so

(32:19):
the gentrification that wraps around that is it is very
much a concerning thing for us in Nashville, because we
don't want success to come create failure for somebody else
not of their own doing either um and so that
that's a lot of the conversation today about how do
we how do we balance those things in Ashville, And so,

(32:42):
you know, I think it's something in meeting things in
around town we are talking about how do we as
a city make sure that it is clear that we
are a welcoming city for anybody to to find what
they're looking for in Ashville. You know, the first thing
gets you so much as I'm out when higher education

(33:03):
with the term we use a lot, but that he
can almost lose its meaning. But I think fundamentally, cities
that aren't welcoming will become irrelevant. You've got to everybody's
got to feel welcome, and it gets to a point
that you want to see everybody and not just people
that look like you. Um. And if you're in a

(33:24):
place that that's not the case, it'll be irrelevant to you.
We still have some more interview for you, but first
a quick break for word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you sponsor. Let's get back to the interview. Can

(33:46):
you can you speak at all to how I guess
technology and industry. I mean, I know that the railroads
were huge and um and Asheville was one of the
first places that had a bunch of different transportation related
innovations in North Carolina. I think I think I've read
that on Wikipedia. You know, if it's on Wikipedia, it

(34:07):
has to be Actually, you know today it's been vetted
so many times. It's actually not as bad as that.
You can actually find some real gems in all that.
But anyway, it's a good resource for resources, right exactly. Yeah,
I mean so I mean, if we're talking about sort
of the ashvill economy today, the tech sector is a
is a really strong growth there. Ifact one of the

(34:29):
things that we're in an easy city. If you can
be wherever you need to be, you don't have to
show up at a particular office. And we have a
ton of folks that are telecommuters that work for Atlanta
based companies and Raleigh based companies and Boston based companies
that don't have to be there, and they be anywhere
in the world, and they choose to be here because
they're like the lifestyle of Ashville, like the folks that

(34:51):
are here, and so we see a lot of that.
But we also have a number of homegrown businesses in
Ashville that do great work, from high tech manufacturing to
um you know, apps and computer programming and things like that.
We're not trying to be the new Silicon Valley or
Silicon Mountain or anything like that, but just I mean

(35:11):
that's sort of talk about trying. I mean, that's what
everybody's been trying to do. But we um even a
nearby community Massing, which is pretty rural county, they've begin
putting greater investment in broadband infrastructure because there there are
a lot of folks that want even a more rural
kind of lifestyle, but they're high tech employees and they're

(35:33):
seeing fruits from that from those efforts already. H Manufacturing
still very strong in North Carolina on the whole, even
with the pretty much loss of textiles and furniture in
the nineteen eighties, but we still have a great deal
of growth around that. And Buncomb County has a very
strong manufacturing economy. Uh that sports along Ire County, but

(35:55):
a lot of the surrounding counties re really have tens
of thousands of folks that live in in Jason Counties
and then come into work in Buoncomb County. That inflow
is tens of thousands every day. Um, and we'll see
that in We've seen other regional economies around around the country.
But it's strong here and and probably will be that
way for the next fifty years for sure. Speaking of

(36:20):
where where do you think Ashville is going? Um, I
think our We don't think Ashville's going. I think we'll
continuen see population growth in Nashville. I think it'll be
more limited than some of our sister institutions around our
sister cities around North Carolina, Menya, Riley, and Charlotte are
huge crowd cities. We don't want to be big a

(36:41):
city of that scale. Um. I think I think we'll
continue to be a popular destination for folks u and
looking for weekend visits. We're great. We're a really great
driving destination that we're saying tons of folks. Gosh, I
just heard the figures on our airport. In five years,
less than five years, we will have double from about

(37:02):
a half million passengers over a million this year. And
so we're seeing but that's both good for us to
live here in folks that are that are coming in.
We're definitely struggling with becoming a popular city in the
real estate issues that that brings. We you know, you're
framing under the rubric of affordable housing. That's a much

(37:23):
more complicated thing than that. For us. It's a supply
and demand. It's good old Kanes in economics. If you
don't have enough supply and the man's high enough, the
prices jack up. And that's exactly what's happened with us. UM.
We just were in it was Forbes this week about
being in one of the top twenty five emerging boom markets,
and we've been a boom market before. And frankly, we

(37:44):
were all talking thought even the past few months we
were not dipping but cooling a little bit. But Forbes
was like, no, no, that's not what's happening. Um, you're
just getting ready to even hit higher heights on that.
And that makes us anxious. Though. If somebody pointed out,
and it's sort of harsh, this at what good city
do you know is cheap to live in? And well,
that's true. This and all the pier cities that folks

(38:07):
be like, well, you know, Ash reminds me a lot
of a smaller Portland or Austin or Boulders and those
are crazy expensive cities to live in. Um. And not
that that's something we're aspiring, and we're we'd be glad
to to rewrite that chapter. But I think that that
will be be a challenge for us. And in hand
in handing that is transportation. Um. We uh, we're we've

(38:29):
outgrown our infrastructure right now for the automobile and part
of that growth we're seeing downtown people are tired of
getting the cars and they're wanting to to walk places.
The other thing in somebodys This seems a little preemptive
to talk about. There's a great deal of conversation that
goes on Nashville about autonomous vehicles, which seems a little
space age, but already we're starting to see those pull

(38:51):
up more than we thought, and and our transportation folks
have begun seriously having a conversation about what would that
look like. You know, do you not have parking decks
now you've still got cars. You don't want robot cars
just roaming the streets at all time, and they gotta
go somewhere because it's also not good energy wise. You
don't want them just using up energy waiting on the

(39:12):
somebody pulled their phone now and bring it, call a
car to them. So it'll be interesting to see how
the impact that that laugh h I think we're are
you know, one of our challenges, it's and it's the
really best challenge to have. Our unemployment is ridiculously low.
It's the lowest in North Carolina and has been for
over three years. It's the lowest has been here since

(39:34):
like two thousand. It's like three point two three point
four this week, which basically means you don't have unemployment UM,
it's just frectional unemployment of people moving jobs and in fact,
in metro actual there's more than ten thousand taking jobs
right now. And so we were actually running to the
issue of having enough people to support the instructure that's

(39:54):
here and growing in terms of business and manufacturing and
other related because even things like UM, nonprofits are huge,
it sounds weird to say non profits are big business
in Ashville. UM, there are so many region, local, regional,
and national nonprofits headquartered in Nashville. Then at one time
there was a figure like one out of every eleven
people were employed by nonprofit in metro Ashville. And I'm

(40:15):
not sure what the current status status is are that
it's a lot of folks. I mean, that's a it's
very common to be meeting folks and they work for
non profits in town for sure. So you kind of
mentioned the the vibe of Ashville and that's why people
move here, and it's really interesting to talk to someone
who's from Ashville. UM, and what do you think since

(40:38):
we are sort of trying to focus in on food
and drink, but but in general, why, why do you
think what is the vibe to you and what what
brings from our experience so far, the food and drink
scene has been amazing. Why do you think that is

(40:59):
so the bigger sort of vibe? I actually go back
to an old there's a bit of old Appalachian sensibility
of live and let live, and who am I to
judge you? Or put another way, if you stayt of
my business, I'll study your business. And part of that
really means that it's not tolerance I don't really care
for that word, but just acceptance and that we may

(41:21):
not see eye to eye and that's okay. I don't
hate you because you don't agree with me, which on
a cultural perspective nationally, that's a little short and happening
today Ashville to that sort of food and drink vibe,
I think you still can connect with all of that. Um.

(41:42):
There's a couple of things that that went on. You know, First,
in the late sixties and early seventies, we had folks
moving to Ashville out of places like northern California, you know,
the so called flower Children, hippie movement and all that,
and they were drawing to Asheville a couple of reasons. One, frankly,
it was cheap to be here, and so for young
folks looking for a place to be and maybe they're artists,

(42:03):
or maybe they were interested in farming or or whatever
they were interested in. And this sort of jived and
worked well for that. Also being in the Appalachian Mountains,
arguably the Appalachians of the oldest mountain range in the world.
Our French Broad River so named because it was the
broad River that went west into French territory in the
owl days. People like it's a weird name. Um, that's

(42:24):
I remain one of our two rivers that go through
through the county. It's the third oldest river in the world.
And so with that there are also people drawn to
Asheville for a bit of that. I mean, you may
frame it a spirituality or the connection to the land
part that goes of course back to Great Cherokee heritage
in Western Carolina as well, and so folks can get

(42:45):
drawn to that. And then there was this time by
the eighties and nineties and I actually put it back
of all things, back to tobacco. Uh. Some folks will
remember that it's in the nineties and the Clinton administration
that the federal govern it started winning these big cases
against a big tobacco and and it was a real

(43:06):
hit on tobacco to the point that tobacco was not
as profitable cropp fell Tobacco has been a huge crop
in North Carolina for you know, a couple hundred years,
and a lot of folks in western North Carolina where
it was always harder to grow than eastern North Carolina.
Again that sort of landscape and whatnot, And so they
got out of it. And as they were looking to
get out of it, there was a group called the

(43:26):
Appalachian Sustainable Agricultural Project that started getting folks into stainable agriculture,
namely around food production. And so there is no table
and farm to table without the farm. And so the
farm started growing at the same time the table was
growing in Ashville. And so we began to see farming

(43:47):
for food really both coming back and really growing in Ashville.
And and that's really helped support that scene. So you
got folks like like Mark Rosenstein starting the marketplace that
could get to uh local produce. Early Girl Eatery down
the Streets a great example. They were one of the
first ones. You know, if they could get it local,
they got it local. And that's pretty standard. I mean,

(44:09):
you even go to chain restaurants in Ashville, and there
literally are stickers on the menu that they buy their
meat at a grey nutcap farms or something like that
that even though that's not where their national supply normally
comes from. So I think that going hand in hand.
And again, once you get a bit of a critical mass,
and frankly, when you've got enough people to both live
here and visit here to come and eat, you can

(44:32):
you can make some of those jumps and food and
put a lot more restaurants per capita than you would
would expect to see here for sure. And there's also
a great air which is the Ashville rest Independent Restaurant
Association UH is extremely good at what they do and
promoting and supporting UH the local restaurant and food culture.

(44:57):
And so it's a very cooperative and people help it.
Again they're in a petition with each other, but I
mean literally, like at Well Played our Board Game Cafe,
there are times we ran out of something and we
can go next door to the Laughing Seed and you
know it's barring a cup of sugar, so to speak,
and and we help each other out like that all
the time. There's not there's not a sense of cutthroat

(45:19):
competition in the food scene here, and then we've gotten
to the point that we're just sort of proud of it.
Katie Button, for example, that has curtained Nightbell. Katie made
it all the way to the last round of James
Spirit this year, and we were sort of following her
like it was a sports team, just Katie's gotta win
this year. Of course the Kati didn't get it this year,
but we're like, Katie's got we we gotta just gotta win.
And you know, in any given year, we've got anywhere

(45:41):
from uh two to four folks up for a James
Beard in some way, and so that that becomes a
little bit part of the hometown culture. Even Yeah, that's
that's great. Everyone that we've spoken to is spoken to
the point that that that even the competition is is
friendly and collaborative. The challenge can be is that of

(46:02):
course people still vote by their feet or they're backside
in the seat, and and so it can be tough
that you know, if you don't bring bring some game,
you don't if you don't last um restaurants come and
go in Ashville offense um, So you've gotta bring you

(46:22):
gotta bring some game for sure. Like like bar food
Nashville and bar food anywhere else, it's pretty serious food.
You just can't get away with basics. Um, what what
do you think? This is a big question, but I
what nostalgia wise, when you think of ash ellis someone

(46:43):
who grew up here? Especially, Um, what is the food
that comes to mind? What is the food that like
brings you back to Nashville. So it's funny growing up
in Ashville growing up in Appalachia. I mean I definitely
you know, grew up in the household where we had
country Fried's day can we had pinto beans and corn
bread and green beans and things like that. But and

(47:03):
weirdly sort of grew up in Nashville. It was also
about moosaka and span a cop But we have a
really big Greek Orthodox population in Nashville, and uh, for
a number of years a number of the local restaurants
were owned by Greek families. And so you might go
and it had dinner fair and didn't get some meatloaf
and you know, carrots and cream beans. But then you
could also get you know, bostico and and moussaka and whatnot,

(47:27):
and so that that was also part of it as well.
It's funny that Ashville Citizen Times are our local paper.
Just at an article last week on with them who
did on the tin uh Tin top restaurants. The people
remember that that are not around anymore, and it's funny
to sort of see what some of the themes in
one was. When I just mentioned called Stone soup and

(47:48):
I remembers the kid, I mean, they were doing artisan
before anybody used artisan noise as a phrase for food,
and it was exactly was a soup and sandwich shop
that did their own home baked breads. And those of
us who I was as a kid growing up, the
people remember it to the point that literally the staff
has reunions. They get together that used to folks that

(48:09):
used to work at this restaurant. You know, I don't
think we've seen there are things that come and go,
but it's not how to put it's not excessively trendy
and Nashville, for example, we don't we don't have a
toast restaurant. You go to San Francis going to the
toast restaurant, and I got nothing wrong with toast restaurant,
but those are ones that probably at least in the town.

(48:32):
Our size won't have a longevity. Folks typically try to
open with some longevity intended. Um, and not just sort
of cat catching a trend. For sure. There's a you know,
it's a lot of small plates more recently though, and
I think part of that comes to folks like me
and you know you love a sampler, Ye try a

(48:54):
little bit. This is that. The other thing I think, Um,
the distilling scene is actually really interesting. That's begun to
fall of the Nashville and it's tied to a U Finally,
what was a late maturing craft cocktail scene. We were
so beer center to Nashville that the craft cocktail was
not particularly strong, and then we we saw folks like

(49:15):
Sovin Remedies. That is hands down my favorite bar in town. Um,
and they're not only do beautiful, beautiful drinks, but great
great food as well. I think they're chef just kind
of buy to the James Beard House. Graham's going to
be doing a doing a thing up here in a
couple of weeks. And they're also uh, the owner his
partner has a urban farming and they do infill on

(49:39):
lots and front yards and do CSAs out of that.
But then they also you know, it is produced for
the restaurant as well, and I just love that. I mean,
that is such a great way to connect, connect in
with land, connect with food and know who's who you
buying your food from. Uh. And so I think that
scene has been uh one that was a little later

(50:00):
for us, that has finally become stronger. The other things
we're actually seeing other food manufacturing happening in Nashville. We
talked about the food scene in terms of what's what
well we go to restaurants, but the actual food production
scene is pretty robust as well. Everything from Roots Hummus,

(50:20):
which has become a major regional and growing national hummus maker,
and they did great flavors of it that you get
in a restaurant, but you can also buying the store,
to Bucci Kombucha and they have become one of the
major national players in kombucha and other kinds of fermented drinks,

(50:41):
like they just started even doing stuff overseas in South Korea. Uh.
There's soda makers have We've been seeing red Devils of
most recent one waynes Weil soda jerks from a couple
of years ago and they're still in production. Chocolate making.
French Ball Chocolate Lounge literally makes tons of chocolate and
they're now building a new production facility here. Most of

(51:03):
their tonnage literally tonnage goes to their main shop downtown,
but they're gonna start, as I understand it, do UM
craft chocolate for uh commercial use like baking chocolates and
choo chips and syrups and whatnot. And having the restaurant.
We we actually don't have many great choices for chocolate
that it's just the big global commercial stuff. There's not

(51:26):
if you're looking for a more craft brand, there's just
not a lot to turn to, and so they're going
to fill that niche. So I think that's the other
part of food and drink that can get missed in Ashville. UM.
And then the list just goes on and on of
the of the folks who make you know, everything from
jams and jellies to to just great you know, time
of day you know day foods from great bakeries and

(51:48):
and other kinds of food like that. So we're and
then some of the times, you know, the demand on
that's has really sometimes outstripped the supply, and so we've
seen some maneuvers and growth having to happen because of
a neat need for that, and that gets, you know,
for some of those businesses, it gets them at that
point of thinking, at what point am I getting beyond local?

(52:09):
And I've become a bit I'm becoming my own big
multinat and not a big multinational, but you know, major
affair and of course the other and y'all, maybe I've
already sampled a little bit there. But are the food
trucks and of course a lot of cities are have
seen uh good food truck scenes. It's interesting for Ashville,
we don't actually allow food trucks to be on the sidewalks.

(52:30):
They have to either be in designated lots or tied
with another business. So most of our food trucks are
actually at the tap houses and they cycle around all
of the beer production facilities, um sometimes one by one
or sometimes two or three, but that's typically where you
go find. There's just recently forty some fifty some food

(52:51):
trucks in Ashville with I mean everything from Indian to
Korean fusion, Korean Mexican fusion to French and the grilled
cheeses and sort of everything in between. Yeah, we were
I don't remember what brewery it was at. We've penned
a number of them, um, but what one of them
had like a food truck of the day board up

(53:11):
and I was like, oh, oh, oh, that's the gig,
Like this is how I mean, that's great And you're
now finding places and unexpected there's a good story. Actually
are the unexpected restaurants. For example, it's the Great Tai
Food that's at the Exxon um or it's the there's
a place up north this woman makes he's fantastic homemade

(53:33):
tortillas and she's like in the back of the gas
station as well. And it's in those they make and
when they sell out, they sell out, you know, their
their homemade there. Uh. There's even and its rumors of
sort of the hidden restaurant seeing that are in people's
houses that just are not they're not official, but people

(53:55):
go and and uh and have their own little little setups.
So there's h that food is very robust, and I
think in Ashville, frankly, it's feeling a bit more to
me what my Europeans friends feel about food of just
really demanding quality. Why am I going to put junk

(54:16):
in my body? This is my body, Why am I
gonna put all these chemicals and all this other stuff
and so, and now there's enough critical mass that it's
actually financially viable for these farms and producers in the region.
And that's the end of our our interview. This our

(54:37):
first bonus interview from Nashville. There will be more. Yes. Yes.
We hope you enjoyed it and found it as informative
as we did. Um and we hope to hear from you,
from you, from you, all of you listeners out there. Yes,
please yes. If you would like to email as you can,

(54:58):
our email is Hello at savor pod dot com. We're
also on social media. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
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from you. Thank you as always to our super producer
Dylan Fagan. Thank you to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.