Communities Heritage/History

Digital Heritage Moment: The Cathedral of All Souls

Photo courtesy of The Cathedral of All Souls

George Vanderbilt established The Cathedral of All Souls in 1896 to serve the workers on his Biltmore Estate near Asheville. The church was the centerpiece of the village he constructed to house his workers, a community known as Biltmore Village.

Richard Morris Hunt, the Biltmore House architect, designed the cross-shaped church and its adjoining parish hall in a transitional Romanesque Gothic style, reminiscent of medieval abbeys.

The church pursued an active social mission. It sponsored a school for mountain children and, later, one for children with special needs, and it supported the establishment of a nearby hospital. In the late 1990s, the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina selected All Souls to serve as its cathedral and it remains the only cathedral in the region.

Digital Heritage Moments are produced at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. To learn more, visit DigitalHeritage.org. You may also hear Digital Heritage Moments each weekday on radio stations WKSF-FM, WWCU-FM, WMXF-AM, WPEK-AM and WWNC-AM.

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