Yancey History Association

05/31/2026

05/28/2026

04/23/2025

03/30/2025

Some history of folk dancing. A lot like square dancing that has been a tradition in Yancey County

Valley Rewind:
Starting in the 1920s American folk dancing and music began to rise in popularity around the nation, including in the Swannanoa Valley. Raymond Peek and his father-in-law, George Watkins, decided to build a dance hall on what is now Warren Wilson Road, which he named the Farmer's Ball, as a place for the people of the Valley to gather and dance. Peek held square dances multiple times a week with live music from either his own band or traveling ones. The dances became so popular that author and poet Carl Sandburg traveled from Flat Rock to attend one. There was even a Farmer's Ball competition square dancing and clogging team that traveled nationwide. This photo from the August 9th, 1946 issue of the "Asheville Citizen-Times" is of the Farmer's Ball team competing for their first year in Bascombe Lunsford's Mountain Folk Festival. Farmer's Ball continued operating until the 1960s when Raymond and his wife Selina decided to retire to Old Fort and sold the building and land.

In 1982 Fred Park decided to bring back the dancing of his youth and started Old Farmer's Ball and met in the original dance hall until 1993 when a blizzard caused the roof to cave in. The Old Farmer's Ball moved on to Warren Wlson's campus where it still meets today. The Old Farmer's Ball is now a non-profit that continues the tradition of contra, English Country, and square dancing alive in Southern Appalachia.