Fifty Years of Mountain Crafts: How Dogwood Crafters Became the Soul of Dillsboro

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 29, 2026

A Dozen Crafters and a Thousand Dollars

In 1976, a small band of mountain crafters looked at $1,000 of leftover U.S. Bicentennial grant money and decided to start something. That decision became Dogwood Crafters, and fifty years later it is still standing in Dillsboro, still run by the people who make the work it sells.

The beginning was modest. Founding member Judy Ewen placed an ad in The Sylva Herald inviting anyone interested in mountain crafts to meet at the library and talk it over. A dozen people answered. They formed a not-for-profit cooperative, pooled their talents, and opened a shop at a time when mainstream America did not widely value handmade goods.

You can measure how far the idea had to travel by one early milestone the founders chose to celebrate. They marked the day the shop took in $50 in sales. That was the bar in 1976, and they cleared it together.

The original members were Patricia Cowen, Judy Ewen, Don Wood, Betty Price, Bob Cowen, Marilyn Jody, Norma Foss, Rosemary Najera, and Jean Patillo. They believed there was a market for the brooms, baskets, quilts, and carvings being made in the hollows and along the ridgelines of Jackson County, and they were right. They just had to build the place to prove it.

What they built was not a store with a few suppliers. It was a cooperative, owned and operated by the makers themselves, where the person who wove the basket might also be the person ringing you up. That structure is the whole story of why Dogwood is still here.

Three Cabins With a Past of Their Own

The buildings that house Dogwood Crafters had a life before the crafters arrived. They were Cannon's Cottages, tourist rental cabins built in 1936 by the Cannon family, back when visitors came to the mountains by rail and needed a place to stay.

In 1977, with help from Dillsboro Mayor Wade Wilson, the young cooperative moved into two of the three cabins it occupies today. A third was added later. The cabins were joined together to form a series of connected retail galleries, twelve rooms in all, tucked into the southwest corner of downtown Dillsboro.

The setting is part of the charm. The shop sits near the railroad tracks and a creek, and longtime member Brenda Anders likes to describe what a visit can include beyond shopping. "Folks can enjoy a game of checkers on our patio or walk across the railroad tracks to sit beside a rambling creek," she said.

There is history layered into the inventory, too. When the cooperative had to cut down some great big trees in front of the building, the wood did not go to waste. "A crafter made beautiful bowls," Anders said. The bowls became part of the shop, a piece of the property turned into something a customer could carry home.

The cabins themselves give Dogwood a sense of permanence that newer retail spaces rarely have. Walking through the connected rooms feels less like browsing a store and more like moving through a house where every wall has been given over to handmade work. The log walls, the small doorways, and the close quarters are the opposite of a big-box experience, and that is exactly the point.

On site there is also Mary's Garden, a memorial garden honoring the late crafter Mary Haywood Nolan. It is the kind of detail that tells you this is a community before it is a business.

Run by Volunteers for Half a Century

Here is the number that should stop you. For fifty years, Dogwood Crafters has operated almost entirely on volunteer labor. Only part-time clerks are paid. Members have given their time to everything else, the room coordinating, the board work, the groundskeeping, the recruiting, the selling.

That is rare for any small retailer, and rarer still for one that has lasted five decades. Brenda Anders, who joined in 1979 after moving to the area, has held nearly every role there is. "I have worked as a room coordinator, officer, board member and groundskeeper, but my favorite job is the cheerleader for Dogwood and Dillsboro," she said.

She has not lost the founders' eye for talent hiding in plain sight. "I look for new members all the time," Anders said. "There is gold in these mountains by way of crafters all eager to produce but not knowing how to offer their talents for sale." That sentence could have been spoken in 1976. It is the same mission, carried forward.

Anders is clear-eyed about what fifty volunteer years actually represents. "How blessed we are to have had crafters who have kept this place going for 50 years on a volunteer basis," she said. And she frames membership as something deeper than a sales arrangement. "It takes a long time to grow old friends. When you become a Dogwood Crafter, the cooperative stands by you in health and sickness, in good times and in bad times."

Over the cooperative's history, more than 1,000 members have passed through. Each one helped keep the doors open without drawing a paycheck for it. That is the engine that has run Dogwood from a $50 sales day to a shop full of 10,000 handmade items.

What You Will Actually Find Inside

The inventory is the reason people keep coming back. Across the twelve rooms you will find stained glass, baskets, brooms, quilts, pillows, original art, prints, photographs, and sewn, knitted, and crocheted pieces. There are nature-inspired Christmas decorations and paintings colored with earth pigments. Members estimate roughly 10,000 handcrafted items at any given time.

What makes it work is the rule that every item is juried before it can be sold. A prospective member presents a handmade piece, and it has to be unique, meaning it cannot duplicate something already in the shop. That keeps the selection from turning into a wall of the same thing, and it keeps the quality consistent.

Anders attributes the cooperative's success to that conscientious oversight. Standards ensure reviewers take care with prospective members' work, and the cooperative encourages members to care about the continued quality of their crafts, right down to the care shown at the counter when a piece is sold. Every crafter feels like the shop is their own, because in a literal sense it is.

Some of the work has its own following. Linda and Ed Barton are in their 21st year making felt ornaments, and their process is a small assembly line of two. "Ed cuts out all the parts and pieces them together," Linda said. "When it's ready to sew, he puts it in my box. I take it, do all the embroidery work, then sew it together, stuffing it with pillow filler as I move along." Their designs run from traditional Christmas symbols to sports teams, military service, vacations, and pets.

Linda points to the deeper appeal for shoppers tired of mass production. "The public will find quality products handmade locally, and not from oceans away," she said. The rooms are rearranged throughout the year, she added, so the shop always looks fresh, and the makers feel "a warm family atmosphere which grows with the years."

A Cooperative That Gives Back

Dogwood Crafters does not keep all of its good fortune inside the cabins. The cooperative sends money to Jackson County elementary schools so art teachers can buy supplies, a quiet investment in the next generation of mountain makers.

That mission is personal for current president Debbie Douglas. "We send money to Jackson County elementary schools for art teachers to buy art supplies," she said. "I just hope it will continue and we will keep that building together." It is a simple hope, and it captures the spirit of the place. Keep the building, keep the work going, keep funding the kids who might one day jury an item of their own.

The anniversary year leaned into that forward-looking side. Alongside the April 11 celebration, the cooperative held a scholarship event on April 25, 2026, recognizing past scholarship recipients and encouraging North Carolina art students to apply. The co-op that started with leftover grant money now hands money forward to students learning the trade.

There is a long memory here, too. Crafter Elsie Mattingly drew national media attention back in 1984 for her hickory-nut and doll work, a reminder that the mountain skills sold at Dogwood have always been worth more than the price tags suggest. The Jackson County Chamber of Commerce once called the cooperative an anchor store in Dillsboro, and that description still fits.

Fifty years in, Dogwood Crafters is doing exactly what its dozen founders set out to do. It is proving that handmade mountain work has real value, giving local artisans a place to sell it, and keeping a piece of Appalachian culture alive in three old log cabins by the railroad tracks. If wandering through places like this is part of why the mountains keep pulling at you, it might be worth a conversation about what it would take to call this corner of North Carolina home.

Planning a Visit From Asheville

For readers based around Asheville, Dogwood Crafters makes an easy day trip. Dillsboro sits about 50 miles west, roughly an hour's drive, in Jackson County near Sylva and Cullowhee. The shop anchors a walkable downtown full of small storefronts, so it pairs well with lunch and an afternoon of poking around town.

The cabins are open year-round, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You will find the shop at 90 Webster Street, in the southwest corner of downtown. Give yourself time. With twelve rooms and around 100 artisans represented, the kind of browsing Dogwood invites is slow by design.

Spring and the run-up to the holidays are especially good windows. The Christmas crafts, felt ornaments, and nature-inspired decorations are a draw all their own, and the cooperative's habit of rearranging rooms means the shop rarely looks the same twice. Bring a little patience and a willingness to talk, because the person behind the counter very likely made something on the shelves.

When you go, take a minute on the patio. Play a game of checkers, walk across the tracks to the creek, and look in on Mary's Garden. Then step back inside and remember that nearly everything around you exists because a community decided, fifty years ago and every year since, to keep the doors open on its own time. That is a rare thing in 2026, and it is worth the drive west to see it standing.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Dogwood Crafters located and what are the hours?

Dogwood Crafters is at 90 Webster Street in downtown Dillsboro, North Carolina, 28725, in Jackson County. It occupies three connected log cabins in the southwest corner of town, near the railroad tracks and a creek. The shop is open year-round, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can reach the cooperative at 828-586-2248 or by email at info@DogwoodCrafters.com. Dillsboro sits about 50 miles west of Asheville, roughly an hour's drive, which makes the shop an easy day trip for visitors based in Buncombe County.

How do you become a member of Dogwood Crafters?

Prospective members request a New Crafter Packet from the cooperative, then present a handmade item to be juried. The work must be genuinely handmade, must meet the co-op's quality standards, and must be unique, meaning it cannot duplicate something already sold in the shop. The review process is intentional, and longtime members credit that conscientious oversight for the consistent quality across the cabins. Dogwood is a true cooperative, so members also contribute time, working shifts, coordinating rooms, serving on the board, or helping with grounds. It has operated almost entirely on volunteer labor for fifty years, with only part-time clerks paid.

What kinds of crafts does Dogwood Crafters sell?

The shop carries roughly 10,000 handcrafted items made by local Appalachian artisans. You will find stained glass, baskets, brooms, quilts, pillows, original paintings, prints, photography, sewn goods, and knitted and crocheted pieces. There are nature-inspired Christmas decorations, paintings made with earth pigments, felt ornaments, and woodwork, including bowls turned from trees that once stood in front of the shop. Inventory is displayed across twelve rooms in three connected cabins, and members rearrange the rooms throughout the year to keep the look fresh. Everything is made locally, not imported, which is a point of pride for the cooperative.

When did Dogwood Crafters celebrate its 50th anniversary?

Dogwood Crafters marked its 50th anniversary on April 11, 2026, when current and past members gathered with local dignitaries to celebrate the history and look ahead. The Town of Dillsboro proclaimed April 4 through 11 as Dogwood Crafters Week. The cooperative also held a scholarship celebration on April 25, 2026, at 2 p.m., recognizing past scholarship recipients and encouraging North Carolina art students to apply. The anniversary events emphasized that the co-op has run for half a century almost entirely on volunteer labor, a rare feat for any small retail operation.