A journey to the spirits of the Swannanoa Valley

Museum’s Haunted Valley Rally Driving Tour views local history through the lens of Halloween

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
October 15, 2020

The graves of Charlotte and Emma Walker, two young sisters who died in the Great Flood of 1916, is one of seven stops on the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center Haunted Valley Rally Driving Tour, Oct. 23 and 24. Photo by Fred McCormick

Halloween is traditionally a time when the living invoke spirits of the past, as spooky stories and themes rule the season. Costume-clad people provide cover for ghostly spectres to walk among them, allowing the dead a brief return to their familiar haunts. 

Since 2012, the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center has utilized the fall holiday as an opportunity to bring the past to life, as volunteers in period-appropriate attire return to local historical sites with performances as ghostly iterations of key figures from yesteryear.

At its inception, the annual fundraiser for the nonprofit organization that preserves, interprets and shares the history of the Valley, was a social event. The annual Historic Haunted Tours, which have taken place at locations like the In-the-Oaks manor house, the Round Knob Lodge and the town’s historic district, were designed to accommodate groups. With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, which kept the museum closed for much of the year, organizers carefully created a mobile and socially distant version.

The Haunted Valley Rally, a driving tour “through the myths and legends of the Swannanoa Valley,” will take place Friday, Oct. 23 and Saturday, Oct. 24, with tours leaving from the back parking lot of Tyson’s Furniture every half-hour between 5:30 p.m. - 8 p.m. Tickets for the Rally are $50 per vehicle for museum members and $75 for non-members. The money raised will support the museum. 

The format for the rally requires attendees to drive their own vehicles as part of a small group led by museum volunteers. The two-hour tour will stop at seven sites in downtown Black Mountain, Swannanoa and several local cemeteries, where participants can listen on a smartphone app to a script narrating scenes as they play out beyond their windshield. 

“This is a twist on the historic haunted house tour as many people know it,” SVM Executive Director LeAnne Johnson said. “Families or friends will be able to travel together in their cars and get a big dose of Halloween magic without feeling like they are at risk.”

Local nonprofit organization, the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center, will blend spooky tales with historical accounts for the Oct. 23 and 24 Haunted Valley Rally Driving Tour. The event is one of the biggest fundraisers supporting the museum. Fred McCormick

The event will transport the audience back to historical events like the Great Flood of 1916 and sites like the former home of Beacon Manufacturing. 

“The tours will explore some of the major tragedies and calamities that have shaped Asheville, Black Mountain and Western North Carolina in general. These are stories that the public needs to know and remember,” said museum assistant director Saro Lynch-Thomason, who wrote the accompanying script. 

SVM board member Carol Tyson suggested the concept for a historic tour centered around Halloween just over eight years ago. She was inspired by a longstanding fondness for the spooky season and her deep respect for the stories of her hometown. 

“I wanted us to find a way to tell the history of the area, but use Halloween to play up the drama,” she said. “We didn’t want gore or chainsaws or anything over-the-top, we wanted to embrace it as an opportunity to tell real stories of the Valley.”

Carol Tyson, left, and Ann Lutz organize costumes for the upcoming Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center Haunted Valley Rally Driving Tour. The two-hour event, which will focus on historical figures and places in the Swannanoa Valley, will take place Oct. 23 and 24.

Tyson continues to assist in organizing the fundraiser today, curating a wardrobe for the performance that corresponds to the appropriate eras. Her attention to detail helps the actors deliver convincing performances. 

“Since the very beginning, we’ve had so many wonderful people step up and help us with this,” she said. “In fact, some of the people acting in the upcoming tour have been with us since the first year.”

Johnson, Lynch-Thomason and Tyson scouted locations for the driving tour and coordinated with property owners. 

“Saro and LeAnne did so much work researching and writing the script,” Tyson said. “The stories are dramatic, and in some cases tragic.”

The tales will focus on many events that have shaped the Swannanoa Valley and surrounding areas like the construction of the Swannanoa Tunnel, which led to the death of over 120 African-American convicts, and the use of sanitariums in the Valley to treat patients with tuberculosis. 

Recent history, such as the fire that destroyed Beacon Manufacturing in Swannanoa, will also be explored. Lake Tomahawk, which was featured in the 1994 novel “The Body Farm,” by Black Mountain native Patricia Cornwell, will be another stop on the route. A socially distant guided tour of Piney Grove Cemetery, one of the oldest in the Valley, will be led by local historian Bill Alexander. 

“This is a time of year when we like to scare ourselves, but it’s also a time of year when many people honor the dead. We want this tour to be a bit of both,” Lynch-Thomason said. 

Registration for the tour is available at www.swannanoavalleymuseum.org/event, or over the phone at 828-669-9566.

“I have always believed that Halloween was truly a magical time of year,” Tyson said. “The costumes, the scary stories and that connection to the past are things I really love. These tours are a way we can celebrate that season and honor the people who were here before us by telling their stories.”