WNC History: Asheville's Flatiron Building, from 'Human Fly's' 1926 climb to today's hotel

Ninety-eight years ago, on the stormy night of May 13, 1926, a crowd gathered to watch as a man with no ropes or harnesses scaled the side of Asheville’s brand-new Flatiron Building. A searchlight on the top of the nearby Jackson Building followed the man as he made his ascent. When he made it to the top unharmed, the crowd issued a collective sigh of relief followed by a round of applause.

Though the climb may have seemed to some to be a spontaneous display, in reality the man, 56-year-old Harry H. Gardiner, was a paid performer who had been nicknamed “The Human Fly” by President Grover Cleveland. He had already climbed thousands of buildings across North America and Europe using just his hands and feet.

By the time he arrived in Asheville in 1926, Gardiner had completed nearly 2,100 climbs. He had fallen twice, but never been seriously injured. He told the Asheville Citizen, “Of my imitators 127 have been killed in 30 years largely because they didn’t learn the four essentials (willpower, perseverance, concentration, overcoming fear). ... That or because they tried to buoy themselves along with whiskey or narcotics.”

Gardiner came to town at the request of the local Oteen Legionnaires, Disabled Veterans of the World War, and Veterans of Foreign Wars who were raising funds for the veterans hospital in the Oteen section of the county.

They advertised the event extensively and thousands — possibly up to 10,000 — people came to view the man who could do the seemingly impossible. An orchestra entertained the crowd while they waited for Gardiner to begin. Volunteers and 100 men from the veterans hospital snaked their way through the throngs to collect donations.

After a speaker explained the needs of the veterans hospital, Gardiner began his death-defying climb. When he arrived at the top, he hung by his fingers (or toes depending on the media coverage), did a headstand on a narrow ledge, and did “a thousand other startling stunts.” Finally, he “nonchalantly” made his descent without incident according to the May 10, 1926 issue of the Asheville Citizen.

Asheville’s building booms

The Flatiron Building had been selected for Gardiner’s climb because the veterans’ fundraising committee felt it would be the most difficult building in the city to scale. Gardiner agreed, citing “the smoothness of its walls and the general peculiar construction of the building.”

The Flatiron’s design and construction came to fruition during the city’s second building boom. The first boom had occurred shortly after the city was connected to the rest of the nation by rail. A number of notable buildings from this period still stand in downtown Asheville, including Allen L. Melton’s Drhumor Building (1895), Rafael Guastavino’s St. Lawrence Basilica (1905), and Richard Sharp Smith’s Legal Building (1909).

Asheville’s second building boom lasted for most of the 1920s. The Loughran Building (1923), Jackson Building (1924), Battery Park Hotel (1924), Kress Building (1927), City Building (1928), and Public Service Building (1929) were all constructed during this boom period.

By the mid-1920s, as Asheville’s population grew, so did the need for office space. The Flatiron Building was designed to fulfill this need.

Considered to be North Carolina’s best extant example of wedge-shaped urban construction, the Flatiron Building was modeled after its New York City namesake and rose from a triangular plot of land between Wall Street and Battery Park Avenue. Designed by Albert Carl Wirth of tan brick with limestone cornices and a molded copper parapet, the building opened to tenants in 1926. For almost a century, the building hosted a variety and diversity of occupants, including doctors, dentists, florists, barbers, dance instructors, private detectives, and Asheville’s first radio station.

WWNC goes on the air

Albert C. Wirth included a provision in the Flatiron building’s architectural plans that would allow for a radio station to operate on the top floor. And, soon after construction was complete, Asheville’s Chamber of Commerce began fundraising to erect two 100-foot towers on top of the building. Asheville’s residents were eager for a local radio station and donated generously.

On Feb. 7, 1927, 500 pieces of galvanized steel finally arrived at the Flatiron building after being lost in a Cincinnati freight yard. A week later, the steelworkers on the project raised an American flag to the 80-foot level on one of the radio towers, signifying that, to date, there had been no accidents or deaths during construction. The flag flew until the final 20 feet of steel was safely in place.

After sending out test signals for a little over a week, Asheville’s first radio program went live on air on Feb. 21, 1927 at 7 p.m. At wavelength 254.1, people across the region could tune in to Station WWNC, short for “Wonderful Western North Carolina,” to hear about local sporting events, crop futures and farmers markets, and social and economic affairs (billed as being everything “from house work to bridge”). The station also broadcast church services and a range of musical acts.

The premier program included remarks by local dignitaries, piano pieces by “some of Asheville’s best known soloists,” and “folk songs by Bascom Lamar Lunsford who … accompan(ied) himself on the banjo.” The program by Lunsford was considered to be the most “unique” feature of the evening as it was “a truly Appalachian Mountain contribution and (was) expected to bring much to the program as far as outsiders (were) concerned.”

Thousands of people called and sent telegrams to the station that first night, partly to congratulate those involved on a successful launch and partly to enter their names into a drawing for a $25 prize. The “high tide of the evening’s first frolic on the air” came when a man from “somewhere in Western North Carolina” called the station to let them know that the program was coming in loud and clear because he was “using his copper still as an aerial.” J. Dale Stentz, the station’s program director, never discovered if the caller was really listening while brewing moonshine or was merely a prankster.

While the station catered primarily to the interests of Western North Carolinians, the Chamber of Commerce made clear the boon that WWNC would be for Asheville’s tourist industry. On Feb. 28, 1927, the Asheville Citizen published a piece from the chamber appealing for more funding, which stated in part:

“When WWNC is on the air, the story of Asheville and Western North Carolina crosses the continent, goes up to the frozen regions of Canada and reaches down into the cities of Mexico. The millions of people who hear it feel, after a while, that they know Asheville. ... Every lecture and address put on the air is a big investment for Asheville. It means that descriptions of our scenery, tributes to our climate, statements of our achievements and lists of our resources will be heard in countless homes. In this, as in every kind of advertising, repetition is the soul of success.”

With this goal in mind, Director Stentz wanted to ensure that “the programs of WWNC (were) of high caliber and (that) all talent was tried out in advance.” One of the first artists booked for a recurring weekly spot on WWNC was virtually unknown when he began singing live on the station. The artist, Jimmie Rodgers, would soon come to be known as the “Father of Country Music.”

Jimmie Rodgers’ break

The month after WWNC launched, Mississippi yodeler James Charles Rodgers moved to Asheville with his wife and child to try to find work on the railroad. “Not being able to find work, he was picking up a few dimes singing and playing,” according to an article by Wickes Wamboldt in the Asheville Citizen.

Though it was not long after his arrival that Rodgers began singing on WWNC, he did it as a volunteer. When Wamboldt first heard Rodgers on the radio, he was singing a lullaby with a “peculiar, haunting, sympathetic character.” Wamboldt told his wife, “Whoever that fellow is, he is either a winner or he is going to be.”

Wamboldt called the station to inquire about the singer and was told that Jimmie Rodges “wasn’t anybody. Just a bum.” Wamboldt continued to hear Rodgers play on WWNC. He called the station again during one of Rodgers' sets and requested that he play the lullaby. A few minutes later, Rodgers returned Wambolt’s call to apologize for not playing the song and explain that his time had been cut for another act. Not long after that phone call, Jimmie and his family left Asheville “broke and disheartened.”

Luckily, someone at Victor Records had also heard Rodgers on WWNC and, like Wamboldt, knew he would be a winner. Soon after Rodgers became part of their field recording program.

Over the course of the next year, Jimmie Rodgers recorded "Sleep, Baby Sleep” and several original numbers, including “Soldier Sweetheart,” “Blue Yodel,” and “Way Out on the Mountain.” “Way Out on the Mountain” rose to the top of the sales list for Victor and stayed there for 14 weeks in a row. By the end of 1929, Jimmie Rodgers had sold more than 12 million records; appeared in the film “The Singing Brakeman”; toured with comedian Will Rogers; and played with Louis Armstrong.

When he came back to Asheville as a headliner, Rodgers held no ill will toward the station for letting him leave the city penniless. He told the newspaper “that Asheville (was), in a measure, home for him” and that he was planning to visit Station WWNC. He said, “Sure I’m planning to sing to them again. I don’t know just when or how many times, but I’ll tell the world if there’s anything I can ever do to help old WWNC they’ll find me coming across.”

Rodgers knew that WWNC had helped launch his career. Over the next few years, the station would also go on to help a multitude of others when the prosperous building boom of the 1920s abruptly ended.

Christmas Cheer

The stock market crashed a little more than a month before Rodgers arrived back in town, and many people were suffering. To try to compensate, the city increased the fundraising goal for its annual “Christmas Cheer Fund” which provided “for the poor and destitute whose Christmas happiness and comfort depend[ed] entirely upon the generosity of the kind and thoughtful.”

To encourage the “more fortunate citizens of the city” to increase their giving, WWNC's director, G.O. “Gosh” Shepherd, not only broadcast frequent appeals for donations on the station, but also promised to install and light a large electric star on the top of one of the Flatiron radio towers if the goal was met.

The dangerous work of installing the star fell to electrician “Red” Stewart and several assistants.

With much less fanfare than “The Human Fly” had received just a couple years before, Stewart, in windy below-zero temperatures with no safety harnesses or ropes, carried a bag of tools while he wired and bolted the star into place hundreds of feet above the ground. Glen W. Naves wrote for the Asheville Citizen, “his frozen fingers clinging tenaciously to the bars of a slender ladder … ‘Red’ Stewart, who once was paid $6 a minute to risk his life in a spectacular climb toward the California skies, laughed as he did the same thing again free of charge.”

When he was safely back on the ground, Stewart told Naves, “You see, I’m pure Scotch-Irish and I don’t dread the business. The Scotch in me makes me tight enough to stick to anything anywhere, and I have got my share of the famous nerve of the Irish.”

Stewart continued, “I have seen several men get killed, mostly by falling, but I have never seen the juice (electricity) get a man yet. I haven’t had a spill yet, although I’ve climbed about as high in life and in the air as a man can get on his legs.”

Thanks to WWNC, the Christmas Cheer Fund was a success for 1929. In front of a large crowd, Asheville’s mayor, Gallatin Roberts, threw the switch to officially light the giant “Star of Christmas” in celebration.

But the cheer would not last. On Nov. 20, 1930, things got worse for the city. Asheville’s largest bank failed. Others followed. Many people lost everything. The building boom of the 1920s had left the city deep in debt, a debt that would not be repaid until 1976. Mayor Roberts, who had happily lit the Christmas Star in 1929, shot himself four days after 18 former bankers and city officials were indicted for fraud.

Historic preservation

Asheville’s downtown district suffered for nearly half a century. Many buildings stood vacant. But Asheville’s downturn would also result in the preservation of much of the 1920s architecture that defines the city today. When other cities were demolishing old buildings to make room for new structures, Asheville stayed the course and continued to pay down debt rather than invest in new infrastructure. And though there was some downtown redevelopment, including a process of urban renewal that targeted and decimated many of Asheville’s historically Black neighborhoods, the core of downtown remained more or less stagnant — and preserved — for decades.

Eventually, low housing prices paired with a budding interest in historic architecture attracted new people to the area. Asheville’s once dying downtown began to experience a new boom period.

As the boom period continued into the 2010s and 2020s, the Flatiron building became a central figure in the debate about tourism-related development in Asheville, especially in the downtown corridor. In 2019, when developers proposed to turn the Flatiron into a boutique hotel, the public was divided. Affordable office space like what the Flatiron offered was hard to find downtown, but the nearly century-old building was in need of repairs that could be addressed if the building was adapted for reuse as a hotel.

In a 4-3 vote, City Council approved the Flatiron hotel project to move forward. Less than three months later, the council passed a 17-month moratorium on new hotel construction in the city.

The Flatiron today

On May 15, 2024, the meticulously renovated Flatiron building reopened as the 71-room Flat Iron Hotel. As a nod to the building’s history, the owners commissioned an exhibit, presently consisting of 29 panels, entitled “Flat Iron Folks,” which recognizes a few of the many people who walked the building’s halls (or climbed its exterior) over the last century. Those granted access to guest room floors can read about Charles “The Human Fly'' Gardiner, Red Stewart, WWNC, Jimmie Rodgers, and a multitude of other former occupants. Original office doors throughout the building have been recently gilded with the names and titles of those featured in the exhibit. Free digital access to their stories is in the works.

The exhibit’s introductory panel notes, “Flat Iron Folks is a collection of tributes to the people, businesses, and moments that brought this building to life. From the famous to the infamous to the unknown, every tenant in this building was a whole person, with hopes, failures, trials, and triumphs.” When combined, these Flatiron stories come together to present a microcosmic picture of 100 years of Asheville’s history.

Anne Chesky serves as the executive director of the Presbyterian Heritage Center in Montreat. She grew up in Riceville.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: WNC History: Asheville's Flatiron Building, from 1926 to today's hotel