From Staff Reports

A section of fabric used to cover the Vance Monument on Pack Square in the center of downtown Asheville recently was torn off from windy weather, the city’s capital improvements department recently confirmed.

The shroud ripped due to strong winds over the last weekend of August, officials said.

“The project manager is working with the scaffolding contractor to replace the ripped fabric as soon as possible, but they do not have any official timetable for the repair,” Asheville television station WLOS (News 13) reported Aug. 31. 

Scaffolding recently was built around the monument and it was covered with fabric to hide it from public view because Zebulon B. Vance —  the 37th and 43rd governor of North Carolina, an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, a U.S. senator and a prolific writer — was a slave-owner.