Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The city's population was 83,393 according to the 2010 United States census. It is the principal city in the four-county Asheville metropolitan area, with a population of 424,858 in 2010. Asheville is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the world's largest active archive of weather data.

History

Origins

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the land where Asheville now exists lay within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation. In 1540, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto came to the area, bringing the first European visitors along with European diseases, which seriously depleted the native population. The area was used as an open hunting ground until the middle of the 19th century.

The history of Asheville, as a town, began in 1784. In that year, Colonel Samuel Davidson and his family settled in the Swannanoa Valley, redeeming a soldier's land grant from the state of North Carolina. Soon after building a log cabin at the bank of Christian Creek, Davidson was lured into the woods by a band of Cherokee hunters and killed. Davidson's wife, child and female slave fled on foot overnight to Davidson's Fort (named after Davidson's father General John Davidson) 16 miles away.

USS Asheville (PF-1)

USS Asheville (PF-1) was an Asheville-class patrol frigate of the United States Navy that served during World War II. She was laid down on 10 March 1942 by Canadian Vickers Ltd. in Montreal, Canada as the River class frigate HMS Adur (K296) to serve in the British Royal Navy. She was launched on 22 August 1942 but due to a lack of American vessels for convoy protection she was transferred to the United States Navy prior to completion. On 1 December 1942, she was commissioned in Montreal as USS Asheville (PG-101), a patrol gunboat. She was reclassified PF-1 on 15 April 1943.

Initially Asheville served on convoy escort but then transferred to anti-submarine patrols.

She was decommissioned in January 1946 at the Norfolk Navy Yard and struck from the Navy Register in February. She was sold in June 1946 and later resold to Argentina where she was renamed Hercules and later Juan B. Azopardo (GC 11). She was stricken in 1973, but her fate beyond that is not reported in secondary sources.

1971 Asheville 300

The 1971 Asheville 300 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that took place on May 21, 1971, at New Asheville Speedway in the American community of Asheville, North Carolina.

Summary

Seventeen drivers started the race; seven of them parked over the course of the race (including tenth-place finisher Bill Shirey), due to concerns regarding prize money for independent teams. The other DNFs were due to engine, brake problems, in addition to problems with the ignition system. After nearly one and a half hours of racing 300 laps, Richard Petty defeated Elmo Langley by a distance of four laps.Dale Inman was the winning crew chief of this race. An audience of 4500 people saw four different lead changes, no caution periods along with Petty and Langley constantly fight it out for the lead.

Like the 1959 Daytona 500, the 1969 Motor Trend 500 and the 1971 Space City 300, this race is considered to be one of NASCAR's infrequently occurring "perfect games." Petty would qualify for pole position driving speeds up to 79.598 miles per hour (128.101 km/h) during solo qualifying sessions.