Riverside Cemetery

Riverside Cemetery opens at 53 Birch Street in the Montford neighborhood — 87 acres of garden-style grounds founded on August 4th, 1885, by the Asheville Cemetery Company. It serves as both burial ground and public park, still active, with paved paths threading beneath oak, poplar, dogwood, and ginkgo trees. More than 4,000 visitors walk these grounds each year.

William Sidney Porter — O. Henry — lies here, master of the surprise ending, whose most famous story opens with counting coins: "One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all." Thomas Wolfe, the novelist who grew up in these mountains, is here. Governor Zebulon Vance. Senator Robert R. Reynolds. Richard Sharp Smith, the architect whose work gave early Asheville much of its shape. George Masa, who photographed the Smokies and made them known. Eighteen German prisoners of war from the First World War rest in a separate plot. The Beth Ha-Tephila Jewish cemetery lies within the larger grounds.

Local tradition holds that visitors leave pencils at O. Henry's grave — the writer's tools left where the writer lies. At Wolfe's plot, they say, some leave an angel; others, a bottle of beer. The offerings accumulate between groundskeeper rounds, small acts of recognition from strangers who read the books.

The cemetery office keeps walking tour maps that trace Asheville's past through the people who built it — the words they wrote, the buildings they raised, the mountains they made visible. A dozen family mausoleums stand among monuments that are themselves works of art. It opens at 7 a.m., closes at 6 p.m., every day of the week. Dogs are not permitted, except those assisting with sight, hearing, or mobility.