Asheville honors Jim Daniels with new Interstate 40 signs

Drivers on Interstate 40 now pass the James W. Daniels Highway signs on a stretch running from the Biltmore exit to the Highway 74A exit, a public tribute to the Asheville businessman long known as Mr. Asheville. The North Carolina Department of Transportation unveiled the signs May 15, giving one of the city’s busiest corridors the name of a man whose influence was felt far beyond the highway.

Daniels died Sept. 7, 2016, at age 80, but his imprint remains visible downtown. His family business, Daniels Graphics, operated on Rankin Avenue, and the Asheville Downtown Association named him a 2014 Downtown Hero. For many longtime residents, his name is tied to the period when downtown Asheville was trying to recover from the hollowing-out that came as retail businesses and residents moved to the suburbs.

One of Daniels’ most durable contributions was helping organize Bele Chere. Launched in 1979 on just three downtown blocks, the festival was conceived by local merchants and business owners as a way to bring life back to the city center. It grew into Asheville’s signature music and arts street festival, and some accounts put its peak crowds at 300,000 to more than 350,000 visitors. That kind of scale changed how Asheville used Pack Square and the surrounding streets, turning downtown into a destination instead of a place people passed through.

Daniels’ legacy also reached into environmental organizing. He is credited with helping start Asheville GreenWorks, linking his civic work to the later evolution of the Quality 76 effort into Quality Forward and then Asheville GreenWorks. That connection matters now as Asheville continues to weigh downtown development, public space and the kind of civic identity it wants to project to new residents and visitors.

Billy Clarke of NCDOT said the roadway dedication was meant as a lasting tribute to Daniels’ vision and leadership. For people who know the city’s history, the new signs do more than mark a road. They point to the businessmen, organizers and volunteers who helped make downtown Asheville more active, more visible and more connected, and to a legacy that still shapes the city’s core today.