Like the county, the city is named for 19th-century North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Leonard Henderson.

[8] Prior to the Treaty of Hopewell, the land that now is occupied by Hendersonville was settled by Cherokee tribes.

Following this treaty, white settlers entered the region, eventually taking the land of what is now Henderson County in full from the original inhabitants.

Poor trade links still restricted economic and demographic growth in the region, until the development of the Buncombe Turnpike, completed in 1827.

Wealthy low-country planters started to migrate to the area, building summer homes and bringing lots of money with them.

He used some of the enslaved African Americans he owned as workers to lay out its 100-foot-wide (30 m) Main Street.

The town has a well-preserved Main Street and adjoining downtown areas with many restaurants, antique shops and boutiques in buildings that housed key local businesses until the mid-1980s.

Larger stores have been developed almost entirely along the commercial strips extending outward from the downtown along U.S. Highway 64 east and U.S.

The newly restored City Hall (erected 1924) and the modern Henderson County Courthouse (1995) are also located downtown.

Hendersonville is located at the center of Henderson County, in the southern mountains of western North Carolina near the Eastern Escarpment.

Interstate 26 also provides direct access to the Asheville Regional Airport (AVL), which features scheduled passenger airline service operated by several major air carriers.

U.S. Route 176 (Spartanburg Highway) leads southeast 10 miles (16 km) to Saluda.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 15,137 people, 7,274 households, and 3,339 families residing in the city.

Down the road at 318 North Main Street is Hands On!, a children's museum of "educational exhibits that stimulate the imagination and motivate learning in a fun, safe, 'hands-on' environment."

The Western North Carolina Air Museum (FAA LID: 8NC9), featuring airplanes of a bygone era, is near the small Hendersonville Airport (FAA LID: 0A7) at the corner of Gilbert Street and Brooklyn Avenue between Hendersonville and East Flat Rock.

For additional sites, see the National Register of Historic Places listings in Henderson County, North Carolina.

After many successful years at that site, in 2012 it moved to an old stone church at 220 S. Washington Street downtown.

The Hendersonville Lightning, founded in April 2012 by Bill Moss, is a weekly newspaper.