Katherine Calhoun Cutshall is an historian and archivist born and raised in Buncombe County. She holds degrees in History and Liberal Arts from the University of North Carolina Asheville, and her research interest lie at the intersections of tourism and the practice of chattel slavery in pre-Civil War Western North Carolina.  

Katherine has worked in museums and historic sites across the region since 2014, including the Gov. Zebulon B. Vance State Historic Site, Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center, and the North Carolina Civil War and Reconstruction History Center. Today Cutshall is Collections Manager at Buncombe County Special Collections and is a member of the North Carolina State Historic Records Advisory Board.  

Katherine and her team at Buncombe County Special Collections is focused on “aggressively enthusiastic” community-driven archives and public history work.