Artwork Description:
This painting is now installed in PACK MEMORIAL LIBRARY, Asheville, North Carolina. } This is small portion of the view, on a June morning a hundred years ago, from Stoney Hill in Asheville, North Carolina, looking west towards that 13 mile distant narrow river cleft canyon through which modern folk travel on Interstate 40 all the way to Tennessee. In 1863, during Americas Civil War, an artillery battery was built on Stoney Hill here on the scenic viewpoint, you might say, on the ACROPOLIS of Asheville, and Stoney Hill then became known as Battery Hill. I painted this in 2003 from my 8th floor office in the Flat Iron Building, very near the location and elevation of where the west veranda of the BATTERY PARK HOTEL, built in 1886 atop that ANCIENT HILL, once stood. From THAT veranda a generation of appreciative folks breathing balsamic air first saw THE VIEW THAT MADE ASHEVILLE FAMOUS.
and heres an old time footnote regarding THIS part of the world
T. L. Clingman
Western North Carolina
Appleton�s Journal
May 1791
p. 587Description of AshevilleThe town is located on a hill above the French Broad River, and is, at its highest point, two thousand two hundred and twelve feet above the sea-level. In summer the winds prevail from the southern points of the compass they come to Asheville cooled by passage over the high mountains, and slightly tinctured with balsamic odors gathered there-from. In winter, as they come from northern points, their force is broken by the mountains on that side, and in descending to the valley meet the milder temperature there generated. Standing in the town of Asheville, one may look far west and see the black tops of its kindred range...