Library & Archives
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A small sampling of the items held in Waterfall Keepers of North Carolina Library & Archives.
When I founded the nonprofit Waterfall Keepers of NC in 2020, one of the initiatives was to create a comprehensive collection of all things related to North Carolina waterfalls. Building this archives will be a continuous work in progress, but it already contains more North Carolina waterfall-related material than any other institution.
Our collection began with all the items I had already acquired: a good number of books, maps, brochures, and other items. Steve Temple, the current president of Waterfall Keepers, soon donated a sizable number of books and magazines from his personal collection. We continue to add items through donations and occasional purchases.
After a couple years, I decided that we should concentrate on but not be exclusive to North Carolina and therefore should include items representing waterfalls throughout the world. Waterfall Keepers of NC doesn’t use organization funds for acquiring items that aren’t rare and related to North Carolina, but we gladly accept donations of material that isn’t specific to the state. Note that we do not hold scanned or digital photographs. We do accept printed photographs and negatives if they are historical in nature.
I envision the collection one day being housed in its own museum. Currently, it is kept in my office in Waynesville and is open to the public by appointment. Use the Contact form to make an inquiry. We plan to create a searchable online database listing the holdings as soon as we are able.
Have something you’d like to donate? Please use the Contact form to let me know what you have and I’ll get back to you right away. Thank you!
What’s currently in the collection? Here’s a ballpark list as of January 2026. Approximately 80% of the items are North Carolina related.
- 300 books
- 200 maps, brochures, pamphlets, etc.
- 125 postcards
- 75 items listed as “uncategorized”
- 75 periodicals
- 20 historical artifacts
- 1 oral history interview
- Rich Stevenson's original ncwaterfalls.com website
- 4 notebooks, 3 drawers, and 6 lineal feet of folders containing nearly 4 decades of my waterfall research
Other libraries holding North Carolina waterfall material.
Sampling of items in the Waterfall Keepers of North Carolina Library & Archives
