“It’s definitely up there at the top, and it was such a surprise.”Īt present, the identity of the photographer is unknown it doesn’t appear in the album. “I think this is the best donation we’ve gotten since I’ve been here,” said Rhine, who has worked at Pack since 1994. “They were ones I hadn’t seen before, and it was photo after photo. “I was shocked,” Zoe Rhine, North Carolina Collection librarian, said. Inside were the delicate, partly frayed pages of a photo album prepared in 1904, with a handwritten title: “Asheville: The Mountain City in the Land of the Sky, Illustrated.” The album contained 34 mostly crisp black and white pictures that were new to the library’s staff. But when it was opened, at Pack Memorial Library’s North Carolina Collection, local librarians’ jaws started dropping. To see more photos McCanless and his associates took in Asheville, visit this North Carolina Collection site and search for “McCanless” in the field marked “Creator.”ĪSHEVILLE - At first, the notebook-sized cardboard box that arrived in the mail was inconspicuous. Rhine said that one key to unraveling the mystery was a postcard published in 1906, which colorized one of McCanless’ photos of Pack Square from 1904 an original of the photo appears in the newly discovered photo album discussed and shown below. Surviving examples of his work indicate that he specialized in both intimate portraits and photos of large gatherings and Asheville-area landscapes. The photos, Rhine’s research indicated, were shot by James Melton McCanless, an Asheville photographer who kept studios on and near Pack Square from about 1890 to 1920. A May 7, 1904, newspaper ad for McCanless’s services.
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