Asheville City Map Poster

About Asheville

Asheville is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center, the world's largest active archive of weather data. Before the arrival of the Europeans, Asheville was within Cherokee territory; in 1540, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto came to the area and built Fort San Felipe (1567) on a ridge where he captured several members of a local tribe. The European settlement in western North Carolina began with two separate French and British settlements known as "Fort Loudoun" (1756) and "Fort Prince George" (1753), respectively. Eventually bought by colonists from South Carolina in 1755, they were renamed Fort Nashborough ("New Town") after Revolutionary War hero Francis Nash who was killed nearby at Germantown during that war's Battle of Germantown. The town grew quickly; first becoming incorporated as a city in 1805 with an estimated population between 1-2 thousand people located along what is now Haywood Street near its intersection with College Street .