Thursday, June 30, 2016

Buck Hotel: Passing of Old Tavern

"Buck Hotel," The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina), Sunday, 4 March 1906, Page 1

Passing of Old Tavern. The Buck, Asheville's Oldest Hotel, to Give Place to Modern Six-Story Hostelry.

Asheville, March 1. -- The old buck Hotel and the wooden structure adjoining are going. The work of tearing away these old landmarks was undertaken this morning. The work is in charge of McDowell & Spears and will consume probably two weeks. The buildings are located on North Main street in the very centre of Asheville and were built more than half a century ago. They are to be replace by a handsome and modern hotel of six stories of frame steel and concrete reinforcement with a roof-garden. The removal of the Buck Hotel means the passing of an ancient landmark; the taking away of the oldest structure in the city and a structure withal around which hovered much that had to do with Asheville when the city was a mere burg. The Buck Hotel at one time was a principal tavern in western North Carolina. It was for years conspicuous by a unique sign denoting its name--the antlers and head of a great buck. The removal of the Buck Hotel has been threatened for many years. It was some ten years ago that rumor had it the Buck was to go. This rumor inspired Will Aiken, now private secretary to the Governor of Montana, but then doing newspaper work in Asheville, to write what was declared to be the best story of the day. The story had to do with a "convention of bed bugs" held in the Buck Hotel "for the purpose of discussing the cruel report of destruction." But now the old landmark is assuredly going. Already portions of the buildings have been torn down and before the middle of the month all that will remain of the famous tavern will be piles of dust-covered timbers and soft-clay bricks. The tavern in the days before the war housed many prominent men. The Buck was the stopping place of hot and cattle drivers that passed through Asheville with great droves of animals before the days of the railroad. At that time there were great vacant stretches of land surrounding the tavern. This land was fenced and into these enclosures were fed great droves of hogs and cattle every night and day. It was a well-known stopping place for the drivers and usually these men spent the night at the tavern.

The building that will replace the old tumble-down frame structure will be a modern and commodious hotel. The hotel will be erected by C. H. Miller in charge of the Smith estate. It will be a thing of beauty and credit to Asheville. Plans for the building as accepted were drawn by Architect R. S. Smith of Asheville. The structure will be six stories in height with a frontage on North Main street of 128 feed and 129 feet on West College. It will cost about $125,000.

There will be 158 bedrooms, with telephone service in every room, two passenger elevators, a dining room to seat 200 persons, and 60 baths. There will also be an independent electric-light plant. One feature of the building will be a court with a glass roof which will extend from the main floor to the roof and the arrangements of rooms so that each room will be bounded by a corridor. On the sixth floor will be a ball-room, with a roof garden. Flowers and potted plants will find place on and around the roof garden and the whole structure will present an artistic appearance. There will be no bar-room in the building.

Asheville Public Houses History

"Four Public Houses," Asheville Citizen, Saturday, 5 February 1893, Page 1

John Carson Estate Settlement 1841


John Carson (1752-1841)








Moses Smith Farm Sale 1856

Moses Smith Farm for Sale, Asheville News (Asheville, North Carolina), Thursday, 21 August 1856, Page 1

"Queer" Found at Old Buck Hotel 1906

News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), Wednesday, 7 March 1906, Page 1

Smith & Chapman

Smith & Chapman Store, Asheville News (Asheville, North Carolina), Thursday, 27 August 1857, Page 1

Uncle Alfred Walker

Uncle Alfred Walker. He Has Lived in or Near Asheville for 72 Years.

There walked into The Citizen office the other day a gray haired darkey who, on account of his age and past affiliations, deserves a place in the Centenary number of The Citizen. The man was Alfred Walker, who has watched the passing of 72 years, and who was reared by James M. Smith, the first white child born west of the Blue Ridge mountains. Alfred has had a varied career, having served through the war and at last become a minister of the gospel, in the Baptist faith. He lives near Emma, on the Murphy branch of the Southern, but does not come to town often, on account of his health, which is not what it used to be. Some years ago, however, he was engaged in peddling about town.

"Uncle" Alfred, when he looks upon the substantial paving of Asheville's streets, chuckles to himself over the thought that he was the pioneer in putting down pavements -- "palements," he says. He constructed a walk of cobblestones in front of the Buck hotel on North Main, carting the stones from the hill now crowned by the Battery Park hotel. Speaking of the Buck hotel--which in his young days was the only hostelry in the town, Walker says: "It's nothing but a log house, covered with planks, and it wouldn't fall down in a thousand years. And they's millions o' rats in it; not thousands, but millions."

The spot now occupied by Geo. F. Scott & Co.'s lumber yard on College street can claim the distinction of being Walker's birth place. That far back this country had not arrived at the dignity of flails for threshing purposes, but the operation of separating the wheat berry from the stalk was carried out thus, as Walker describes it: The wheat was placed on the floor of the barn, several horses were rough shod and boys put on their backs to guide them around the room until the wheat had been tramped out. Flax trousers and flax dresses were the height of fashion, and shoes were an unknown quantity except on rare occasions, so Walker says.

"There's not a darkey of my set here now," he says; "I'm the only one left of my master's 500. If times were like they were then and my old master was back here, I'd rather be with him than to be free. He raised me to be truthful and honest, and I never had a mark on my back. Ca'se why? When he tole me to do anything I went right now and done it."

Walker served through the war in the Union army, Bartley's Tennessee regiment, and was mustered out at Knoxville. He is expecting a pension any day. He says people ask him how it is that he can preach although unable to read. "Then I asks, Who teached the fust man? Jesus Christ. Well, I've got religion: I know it; it keeps a-growing, and I'm richer than Vanderbilt, if he ain't got it."

Source: Asheville Citizen (Asheville, North Carolina), Saturday, 5 February 1898.

Asheville Hotels 1871

"Asheville Hotels," Weekly Pioneer, Thursday, 7 September 1871