News

Transportation history includes whatever floats your boat

By Bill Moss, Published: October 16, 2016

Hendersonville author Terry Ruscin covers drovers and wagons, stagecoaches, ferries, historic inns, stockades and taverns alongside the Buncombe Turnpike, the railroads, depots and trains, riverboats, streetcars and trolleys, bridges, gaps, roads and highways in his new book, A History of Transportation in Western North Carolina.

While other authors have covered rails or air or roads, Ruscin covers all aspects of transportation including traffic, bridges, taxis and buses, automobile dealerships and ill-fated attempts to ply the French Broad River.
Terry Ruscin poses with one of the dozens of modes of transportation he covers in his new book.The cast of characters in the history includes Valentine Ripley, Solomon Jones, Sidney Vance Pickens, Joel R. Poinsett, Capt. Charles W. Pearson, Lt.-Col. Thaddeus C. Coleman, W.A. Smith and more. The book includes more than 135 images, among them rare historic photographs (some never-before published), maps and blueprints. Published by History Press of Charleston, S.C., the book includes a foreword by best-selling author and Green River native Robert Morgan.
A book launch will be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at the Henderson County Heritage Museum in the Historic Courthouse.
Other book signings will be held 1-5 p.m. Nov. 12 and 13 at the Western North Carolina Air Museum. A slide presentation and book signing will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18, in the Kaplan Auditorium of the Henderson County Public Library.