Downtown Hendersonville

Hendersonville was laid out in the 1840s on land given by Judge Mitchell King, with a Main Street a hundred feet wide, and was chartered in 1847 as the county seat. The commercial buildings along Main Street date from about 1850 to the 1940s, and the Main Street Historic District, 65 contributing buildings on about 34 acres, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. The street itself is the city's signature: it bends in a serpentine line through sixteen blocks, and planters of trees and seasonal flowers run along the storefronts. The gold-domed 1905 courthouse at First Avenue and Main houses the Henderson County Heritage Museum.

The district fills with events from May through the fall, including Garden Jubilee, Friday-night Music on Main, Monday street dances and the North Carolina Apple Festival over Labor Day weekend, which has run for more than eighty years. The Henderson County Curb Market has operated since 1924. Elevation is about 2,100 to 2,200 feet, and Asheville is 22 miles north on Interstate 26. Homes within walking distance include the older neighborhoods around downtown and a small number of condominiums near Main Street, with Laurel Park and Flat Rock just beyond.