University of North Carolina at Asheville
Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
University Of N.C. At Asheville. Established 1927; became Asheville-Biltmore College 1936. Moved here in 1961. A campus of The University of North Carolina, 1969.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
The University of North Carolina at Asheville traces its roots to 1927, when it opened as a junior college; it became Asheville-Biltmore College in 1936 and moved to this site in 1961. In 1969 it joined the University of North Carolina system as a full campus. Its growth mirrors the twentieth-century expansion of public higher education across the state.
Why it matters
UNC Asheville's evolution from a local junior college to a public university campus reflects the broad democratization of higher education in modern America.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Riverside Cemetery Marker
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Riverside Cemetery, laid out in the 1880s on a hillside above the French Broad River, became the resting place for some of North Carolina's most celebrated figures. Among them are novelist Thomas Wolfe, whose 'Look Homeward, Angel' immortalized his native Asheville, and short-story master William Sydney Porter, better known as 'O. Henry.' They lie near Zebulon B. Vance, the Civil War-era governor, and two men who served the state in the U.S. Senate, Thomas L. Clingman and Robert R. Reynolds. This marker points the way to a quiet green acre where literature and statecraft share the same ground.
Anne Penland
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This Asheville house is the boyhood home immortalized as the boardinghouse in Thomas Wolfe's autobiographical novel Look Homeward, Angel. So closely did Wolfe draw on the people and rooms of his real Blue Ridge upbringing that the book caused a local uproar upon publication. Recognized as a National Historic Landmark, the house preserves the world that shaped one of America's most distinctive literary voices.
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