Marla Hardee Milling - Wicked Asheville

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2018 by Marla Hardee Milling

All rights reserved

First published 2018

e-book edition 2018

ISBN 978.1.43966.532.9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018942443

print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.880.2

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

DEDICATED TO:

CHARLES T. TOMMY KOONTZ

Mr. Koontz served as my principal while I attended T.C. Roberson High School in Skyland, North Carolina. My admiration and respect for him has only deepened throughout the years. He works tirelessly in the community volunteering his time, talent and energy to helping others, just as he worked tirelessly to encourage and support his students throughout his career. While it may seem strange to dedicate a Wicked book to someone who doesnt have a wicked bone in his body, my reasoning is simple: this book needs balance and an awareness that we all have the choice to be like Tommy Koontz as we distance ourselves from the evil in the world and choose to live with love, kindness and compassion for others.

Also dedicated to the writer who has been my unknowing mentor and who is skilled at presenting the wicked in fiction:

STEPHEN KING

When I was a freshman at T.C. Roberson, I took Home Ec my first semester in the fall of 1976. It was in that class that an upper-class student changed my life by putting a copy of Salems Lot into my hands. It was my introduction to Kings work, and Ive been a fan ever since.

In 2009, I faced an incredible wicked experiencesitting in a pediatric neurologists office and being told that my then eleven-year-old son had a brain tumor (reclassified later as a prolactinoma). My world stopped as I turned my entire focus toward his health and healing. That also meant I couldnt keep up my regular load of writing assignments at that time. As I struggled to pay bills, the Haven Foundation, established by King, was one of the organizations that came to my rescue. I am forever grateful.

Thank you, Stephen King.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Many do NOT want you to read this book. Ashevilles majestic blue and purple mountains glow, with a halo of silvery clouds, in glossy ads and slick TV commercials all over the world. The cozy streets explode with tourists who pour in for a fun experience, rambling on foot. The idea is to focus on a good time, and yet, Marla Hardee Milling has decided to write this book about the dark sidethe seedy things, the things we usually brush under the rugcalled Wicked Asheville.

Why?

How much can we pay you, Marla, to just forget about all this, cram it in a manila folder and let the city ride its wave of positive income with a nave smile?

Why do you need to point out the embarrassing, awkward and often shameful things in the past of this grand, southern gem?

What in the heck are you thinking???

Okay.

I suppose these are rhetorical questions. Why do I say this?

Well, Marla is a native of these mountains, just like me. And I know she doesnt want to hurt us. So heres what Im thinking about her decision to write this controversial book

Some of the worlds smartest peoplecosmologists and astrophysiciststell us that all time is occurring at once. What you consider the past, present and future are all happening simultaneously. However, the human brain is so diminutive it can only process this little by little, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month and year by yearplus from a limited perspective or point of view.

Thus, in other words, as you stand in Asheville today, you are knee-deep in what happened in Asheville twenty years ago, one hundred years ago or even two hundred years ago.

Why is this important?

Because you can only grasp the identity of a place if you know its historyfor better or for worse.

And to this very day, when you stand in the middle of downtown Asheville, with the Battery Park Hotel gleaming before a full moon as if you are on some movie set or in the middle of a miniature shadowbox, you are immersed within the entire, multilayered history of that site.

Many roaring and wonderful times were had in that grand building, but it also was the site of numerous suicidesdepressed people jumped from the top. Let us therefore be honest about our view of the place. The tragedies were rare, but they did occur.

Some prefer to turn a blind eye, like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand, to the unpleasant elements of history. And yet, these elements give us the contrast by which we see the peaks and valleys more sharply.

So, in this book, Marla has firmly embraced the darkest sides of our community so that we can both have a fuller, and more realistic, sense of our complex identity, and to form that precious contrast so the good parts of our region pop forth even more vividly.

And even the darkest clouds do have a surprisingly silver lining. For example, Asheville was founded in the 1790s. And yet, in all these years, our largest mass murder, the Will Harris incident, which occurred in 1906, culminated in six dead bodies, including that of the madman himself. Six is not a huge number, especially when compared to other towns of similar popularity. Let us keep it that way.

It is true that all the soil of the world is drenched in blood. These mountains have certainly absorbed their share. And being positioned at such a sweet spot between the North and South, and near the coast, every type of swindler and weirdo has drifted through here at one time or another. It is therefore inevitable that twisted things will occasionally occur, and troubled genes get passed down through the generations.

It is, at the very least, interesting to reflect on the kinds of stories Marla has collected here. And, really, the tone of these tales is not so different from the kinds of disturbing headlines blazing across the news today. We have a natural fascination with those things that go wrong. It all goes back to survival of the fittest. We evolved to be aware of danger so we can avoid it ourselves. Fortunately, these stories are newsworthy because they are, in fact, so rare. They are the gross exception to the friendly people and beautiful scenes.

The morbid joy in reading a book like this one may be similar to watching a horror movie. I wouldnt want to watch a horror movie every day, but once in a while, its fun to let your mind drift into ghoulish territory. One thing is for certain about these scenic lands. During the day, when the sun shines and the air is crisp and clean and streams rush through the lush leaves and mossy rocks, Asheville can feel like a version of heaven. But late in the evening, when the sun slips away and darkness quietly creeps across the ranges, everything changes. The mountains are spooky, the curved, winding roads hiding whatever you can imaginebandits or spirits or wild beasts of campfire tales.