When we last left Will Banks, he had been convicted of murder in what many then and now believe was an act of self-defense. Let’s travel back in time to August 22nd, 1907, Banks is standing atop of quickly constructed wooden scaffold 50 yards down the street from the Ashe…
Will Banks, a son of slaves, was born in 1875 in the Crumpler community of Ashe County, NC. Because jobs were scarce in Ashe County, Will frequently traveled to West Virginia to work in the coal mines, where he earned around $5 a month. After 2 or 3 months, he…
You’ve probably heard the story about the young couple who were short on money but who desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts…Unbeknownst to the man, the young woman sells her most valuable possession, her hair in order to buy a fob for his pocket-watch, which he sold to…
Humble beginnings often lead to humility and a life of service. One legendary example is a woman know as Sister Sophie. Born to German immigrant parents, Sophie spent her early life near Kings Mountain, North Carolina. But when her father died, she and her older sister moved to Baltimore to…
Some folks call Spring in the mountains Green Up time. As Winter releases its grip (begrudgingly!), the hills and hollers go green from the bottom to the top like mercury rising in a thermometer. Staying with the theme, many Spring greens begin to appear in abundance. About 100-plus years ago,…
Our story begins in the southwestern part of NC…and ends only 8 miles south of his birthplace. Zeb Vance packed a lot of living into those 64 years.… including law school, fighting in the Civil War, three terms as governor, a federal prison sentence and representing a defendant, free of…
Frequent visitors to the area attempting to escape the summer heat led Union Civil War General John T. Wilder to construct a 20-room spruce log lodge atop Roan Mountain in 1877. As its popularity grew, he constructed a luxury resort atop Roan Mountain in 1885 which straddled the TN/NC line,…
While Doc always insisted he was just a regular person, a man of the people, but people growing up with Doc knew he was different….unique. The sense was that, if he wasn’t going to be famous for his music, that he would be famous or noteworthy doing something else. According…
Arthel Watson embodied that classic Southern phrase: “Don’t get above your raising.” Folks from the North misinterpret its meaning. It doesn’t mean don’t achieve or better yourself, it doesn’t mean don’t do your best or be your best, it means stay humble, remember your roots, and remember your family despite…
The Great Blizzard of ’93 was a massive storm that formed over the Gulf of Mexico on March 12th of that year. At its peak, the storm stretched from Canada to Central America. You know the old saying, “everybody talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about…
