Leicester History Project seeks to preserve rural Buncombe stories

Within 30 seconds of a Facebook post going live, a longtime Leicester resident texted Katherine Cutshall to say he had family stories and photographs ready to share. That quick response showed the kind of urgency behind the Leicester History Project, which is trying to capture the lives of rural Buncombe families before their records are scattered, forgotten or overtaken by development pressure.

The project was announced by Buncombe County on April 20 as a partnership among Buncombe County Special Collections, the Leicester Branch Library and community volunteers. It is focused on Leicester, Sandy Mush Township and French Broad Township, communities that have often been left out of the official record even as Asheville has dominated the county’s public story. Cutshall said archives have historically favored people with power, wealth or political influence, leaving many everyday rural experiences uncollected.

The county is asking residents to contribute photographs, letters, audio recordings, video and written histories to a shared digital archive. It also set up an online contribution portal and planned volunteer oral-history work and digitization help so families can preserve materials without losing the originals. A public kickoff event was held May 9 at the Leicester Branch Library, from 2 to 4 p.m., where residents could learn how to submit materials and sign up for interviews and scanning sessions.

Buncombe County’s broader history makes the effort more urgent. The county’s history page says archaeological evidence of permanent human settlement in the region dates to about 8000 BCE, and that Western North Carolina was primarily occupied by the Cherokee people and also home to the Catawba people. Leicester itself, about 10 miles northwest of Asheville, was once known as Turkey Creek and was renamed in 1859 in honor of Leicester Chapman. Today’s project is meant to preserve not just long family lines, but also the changing record of a place whose identity has been shaped by generations of rural life.

Blue Ridge Public Radio reported that the Leicester effort builds on the earlier Come Hell or High Water community memory project, which began in January 2025 to collect stories from communities affected by Tropical Storm Helene. Buncombe County Special Collections said that project grew to include more than 100 community members and nearly 400 submitted items. The Leicester project is expected to extend that model, with community scanning days planned for the summer, personal archiving backpacks available for checkout with a library card, and the possibility of books and transcripts drawn from the oral histories and photographs collected.

Cutshall has said she wants the archive to hold both long-established family histories and newer immigrant stories, noting she had been told Erwin High School had roughly 30 languages and dialects spoken at home. In a county with 11 branch libraries plus Pack Memorial Library in downtown Asheville, the Leicester branch at 1561 Alexander Road is now serving as a place where rural memory can be gathered before growth changes the story for good.