SUBTERRANEAN ASHEVILLE

Enormous wealth was drawn to Asheville during a period in the 1800s and very early 1900s when banks were not particularly reliable for safeguarding deposited funds. Wealth had to be invested in tangible things or hidden away, even buried, to be safeguarded. WWII brought more great valuables to Asheville to be hidden—Including property of the US government and our museums. If some of those hidden valuables, including gold and silver currency, were forgotten and left in their places of safekeeping, where are they? Are they lying in wait somewhere in subterranean Asheville—waiting to be found?

There are a lot of rumors about subterranean Asheville. But for the most part, no one is talking officially. Homeland Security has invoked a cloak of secrecy prohibiting any unauthorized disclosure. Here is what the public knows.

We know that tunnels were used to smuggle bootlegged whiskey and moonshine. Pack’s Tavern proudly shows off the entrance to one used from their facility during prohibition. At one time there were underground bathrooms in the city and some people have reported those facilities had access to underground passages. There are rumors of tunnels from the city to the Biltmore Estate that conspiracy buffs say were used for immoral or sinister purposes.

While records can’t be located, locals say that at one time the city initiated efforts to build a subway system and that at least four underground stops were built. There are indications that an extensive system of tunnels connected various locations including the Battery Hotel, the Grove Park Inn and the residences of E. W. Grove and other wealthy citizens. We know that there is something under the Masonic Lodge and that the organization refuses to allow excavation, and there are written accounts of underground vaults discovered during the demolition of Asheville buildings.

We also know that the U. S. Government commandeered considerable property throughout Asheville at the start of WWII, including the Grove Arcade, the Battery Park Hotel, the Grove Park Inn, parts of Biltmore, numerous medical facilities, and factories. The Government held on to some of those properties, including the Grove Arcade, for years after the war. During those times, Asheville’s remoteness led to it being used as a secret safe harbor for sensitive materials and irreplaceable items of great value.

If rumored tunnels existed, what were they used for and what did they hide? And to the extent that they did exist as a connected system of underground passages, that system is now broken because of time, nature, and disruptive construction and demolition projects.

What remains is a series of disconnected underground spurs and vaults with their individual access and egress gone, covered up, lost, and forgotten. So, look carefully as you walk the streets and alleys of Asheville. Someday a sink hole is likely to open, and a lucky person may fall or stumble into a buried fortune!