Join author and historian Terry Ruscin as he reveals Henderson County's forgotten yet colorful history complete with its own cast of characters and historic landmarks. Who composed a blockbuster opera a few miles from downtown Hendersonville? Who were the record-setting McCrary twins, and why were they famous? These questions and many more are answered in this exciting volume of obscured history. From James Brown's 1950s performance on Hendersonville's Main Street to the rumors of illegal distilling in Cathead, these are the tales of surreptitious cascades, log homes and unattended cemeteries. Delve into the communities of Black Bottom, Delmont and Peacock Town. Discover what lurks within the derelict buildings of the county's backcountry roads.

From the county of Buncombe, Henderson County was formed in 1838. Following a three-year dispute concerning the placement of a county seat, the town of Hendersonville was established in 1841. Situated in the eastern Blue Ridge escarpment of the Southern Appalachian range in Western North Carolina, Henderson County, known as "Land of the Sky," supports a diverse geography, climate, and populace. From its inception, the county has been a vibrant melting pot of cultures, talents, and disciplines. Denizens of the county have included all from Revolutionary War patriots, renowned architects, and tycoons to moonshiners, granny doctors, inventors, and even a famous hog. Henderson County hosts the annual North Carolina Apple Festival and boasts top-producing orchards, floriculture, wineries and breweries, world-class golf courses, and master-planned communities amid accessible natural resources and four seasons of color and clime. The county's spectrum of historic architecture has ranged from log dwellings to Victorian, Romanesque, Neoclassical, and Greek Revival motifs.

Resting in one of Western North Carolina's scenic valleys near the continental divide, Hendersonville offers a rich culture and intriguing history in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hendersonville was chartered as a city on January 7, 1847, and the coming of the railroad in 1879 sparked its growth. The summer arrival by train of both wealthy and middle-class visitors bolstered Main Street businesses and gave rise to fashionable inns and innumerable boarding houses. The photographs in Images of America: Hendersonville illustrate the history of a town still populated with founding families, seasonal residents, and summer tourists. This volume explores the early pioneer days, the Civil War period, the land boom of the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the growth of this now-thriving city.

This “masterfully woven…literary home run” (New York Journal of Books) follows four women across generations, bound by a beautiful wedding veil and a connection to the famous Vanderbilt family from the New York Times bestselling author of the Peachtree Bluff series. Four women. One family heirloom. A secret connection that will change their lives—and history as they know it. Present Day: Julia Baxter’s wedding veil, bequeathed to her great-grandmother by a mysterious woman on a train in the 1930s, has passed through generations of her family as a symbol of a happy marriage. But on the morning of her wedding day, something tells her that even the veil’s good luck isn’t enough to make her marriage last forever. Overwhelmed, she escapes to the Virgin Islands to clear her head. Meanwhile, her grandmother, Babs, is also feeling shaken. Still grieving the death of her beloved husband, she decides to move into a retirement community. Though she hopes it’s a new beginning, she does not expect to run into an old flame, dredging up the same complicated emotions she felt a lifetime ago. 1914: Socialite Edith Vanderbilt is struggling to manage the luxurious Biltmore Estate after the death of her cherished husband. With 250 rooms to oversee and an entire village dependent on her family to stay afloat, Edith is determined to uphold the Vanderbilt legacy—and prepare her free-spirited daughter Cornelia to inherit it—despite her family’s deteriorating financial situation. But Cornelia has dreams of her own, and as she explores more of the rapidly changing world around her, she’s torn between upholding tradition and pursuing the exciting future that lies beyond Biltmore’s gilded gates. In the vein of Therese Anne Fowler’s A Well-Behaved Woman and Jennifer Robson’s The Gown, The Wedding Veil is “a sparkling, fast-paced joy of a book that celebrates love, family, and the right to shape one’s own destiny” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author).