When the Western North Carolina Railroad reached Asheville in 1879, it changed the course of the mountain city — connecting the isolated region to the outside world.
But the railroad’s construction came at a tremendous human cost — one that remained largely absent from the region’s public history for generations.
More than 3,000 Black men were forced into dangerous convict labor to build the railroad’s network of tracks and tunnels through the mountains of WNC. Many were incarcerated for minor offenses in a system that historians say selectively and sometimes unjustly targeted Black people to supply cheap labor for railroad construction.
The RAIL Memorial Project aims to bring greater public attention to the incarcerated workers who built the railroad. Since 2020, the RAIL Project has constructed three memorials honoring the workers and has continued its efforts to educate the public about their lives, hardships and sacrifices. One memorial near Andrews Geyser commemorates the incarcerated laborers and those who died during the construction of the railroad.
Guided history hike
A guided hike on Sept. 28 will explore the forgotten history along one of the railroad’s most challenging ...