Valley Rewind: Historic American Cafe in downtown Black Mountain

This undated photograph from the Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center’s archives shows a view of the intersection of Black Mountain’s State Street and N.C. 9, including the American Café. The building was constructed to be an auto shop, and was housing the Black Mountain Garage in the late 1920s. The Ingles family operated an American Café in Black Mountain as early as the 1910s, but the building shown here didn’t become the American Café until at least the 1930s. By 1950, the building had become the Dixie Home Store, a grocery that merged with Winn and Lovett to become the Winn-Dixie grocery chain in 1956. The building now houses Keller Williams Realty.