Blue Ridge Parkway
Smith McDowell House Museum, NC

The Smith McDowell Museum preserves the history of western North Carolina, particularly the city of Asheville during the Victorian era. Older than the Biltmore estate by 40 years, it is the oldest surviving brick structure in Asheville. It is mainly used for teaching history and practices of the 19th century with a hands-on approach to school-aged children. Visitors can experience the features of the museum either by themselves or with a guided tour from one of the museum volunteers.

A few times during the year the museum and its volunteers do living history reenactments, in which they dress up in historic costumes and tell the history of the times from a first-person perspective. The best time to experience this unique event is on Memorial Day weekend.

The exhibits tend to vary during different times of the year, trying to represent the history of western North Carolina, instead of just the history of the house. The house itself was built by James McConnell Smith (1787-1856) and his wife Mary "Polly" Patton (1794-1853) on land that Smith's father Colonel Daniel Smith (1757-1824) acquired via a land grant for Revolutionary War soldiers.