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Thomas Clayton Wolfe, one of North Carolina’s most famous authors, was known for writing from life experience. He chronicled growing up in Asheville (fictionalized as “Altamont”) in his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. Wolfe vividly described many places in the city. Some of these structures still exist today, while others are long gone.
Wolfe left Asheville for college in 1916, and during the 1920s his visits home became less frequent. In Wolfe’s last book, You Can’t Go Home Again, he lamented that “the sleepy little mountain village in which he had grown up … was now changed almost beyond recognition.” More than 65 buildings were erected in downtown Asheville during the 1920s. The little mountain town had become a resort “boomtown.” After the publication of his first book in 1929, Tom did not return home again until 1937.
You can visit his home and take a walking tour and discover parts of Asheville that Thomas Wolfe saw during his lifetime (1900 – 1938) and many that he remembered in his writing.