Articles in regional publications that pertain to a wide range of North Carolina-related topics.
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52 results
for "Williams, Robert L"
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7869
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A group of children called Junkies lived in the two-block section of Seventh Eighth streets in Statesville in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Every Friday, the Junkies assembled at the junkyard on Seventh Street and the gully on Eighth Street to gather scraps of metal from old automobiles. Even if the Junkies received only a dime for all of their hard work, they were pleased because it was enough to get them into the Crescent Movie House, which featured western films.
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7889
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Sugar Hill, a suburb of Fallston, is known for its annual Easter egg fight. Participants bring anywhere from 6 dozen hard-boiled eggs to 125 dozen, sometimes more. A fight commences when one person taps his or her egg against another person's egg. When one end of an egg is cracked, it is turned over, and another attack begins. A winner is declared when both ends of a competitor's egg are cracked. The winner keeps the loser's egg and both of them move on to the next fight.
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7746
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Long before the days of million dollar contracts, press agents, and television coverage, baseball was played for fun at East Monbo Park. The park was located in Iredell County between Statesville and Mooresville near a cotton mill in the early part of the 20th-century. Workers were permitted to watch the games, which were played at five o'clock in the afternoon during the week and one o'clock on Saturdays as long as someone stayed behind to keep an eye on the machines. By 1986, the park was completely under Lake Norman, but the memory of the terrific baseball played there will live on.
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8089
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A major irritation in picking blackberries is dealing with trombicula, more commonly known as chiggers. If you want to pick berries in the wild, you will have to suffer through chigger bites. There are some homemade remedies however, that can help to prevent bites, including wearing tight clothing and placing a kerosene soaked cloth around your ankles.
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Record #:
8905
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In 1929, the city of Gastonia erupted into a bitter struggle between textile factory owners and workers. Employees at the Loray Mill walked off the job when Fred Beal, who had been organizing a strike, was fired. Violence quickly broke out and in the ensuing weeks Police Chief W. O. Aderholt and strike leader Ella May Wiggins were killed. During the night the one-hundred black cars roamed Gastonia's streets looking for strikers to assault. A trial was held regarding Aderholt's murder. Several of those convicted of the crime fled to Russia seeking asylum. The Loray strike is a tragic episode in Gastonia's history.
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Record #:
9572
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Before commercialized soap, people made do with homemade lye soap. Williams describes the necessary ingredients and the soap making process.
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Record #:
8506
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Watermelons are coveted items on a hot summer day. A great problem with watermelons is that they can grow only during the summer and early fall. There is a way, however, that ensures that you can enjoy this summer fruit year round - dehydration. During the summer you can take a ripe watermelon and dehydrate slices in an oven or in the sun. Dehydrated watermelon tastes especially sweet because the fruit's natural sugars are concentrated after the water is removed. The watermelon rind can be pickled, too, thus enabling the entire watermelon to be enjoyed year round.
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Record #:
8585
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Every year Cleveland County's smallest town, Belwood, hosts its Heritage Day celebration. Residents dress in 18th-century clothing, travel by horse to the community church where they have a town picnic and celebration. Belwood almost disappeared when the town lost its post office, businesses, and local schools. Local citizens, however, bought the old schoolhouse and teacherage from the county, preventing the demolition of the buildings. The State of North Carolina officially recognized Belwood as a town in 1978, thus ensuring that the town will not disappear.
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8552
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In 1844 on his way to the Democratic National Convention, James K. Polk spent the night at Magnolia Grove, the mansion of David Smith located in southern Lincoln County. The first tavern of the area, Dellinger's Tavern, stood just behind Magnolia Grove and not more than a hundred yards from the mansion was a rock building that would become the first jailhouse and first courthouse in Lincoln County. The construction of the main house at Magnolia Grove is truly remarkable for its state of preservation. Some of the bricks still bear fingerprints from the original masons. Magnolia Grove has been in the Love family since 1972 and it was Ed and Elizabeth Love who took such care to restore the house. The furniture is not from the 1820s, but the rest of the house still has original woodwork and plaster. The basement, once used to chain slaves, has metal rings in the walls. The bedroom where Polk slept is perfectly preserved.
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8738
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During 1865, Governor Zeb Vance admitted it was impossible to continue to carry out his gubernatorial duties in Raleigh. He moved to Statesville that spring, but was arrested at his home on May 12, 1865 by Federalist forces. Because Vance was not involved in the profiteering common in the state at that time, the house is humble and hardly a mansion. The house is now a museum in honor of Vance and is open to the public.
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Record #:
8772
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Eustace Conway, age twenty, is known as the Mountain Man of the Piedmont. Living in a teepee in Lincoln County, Conway reads Walden and is completely self-reliant. He eats mostly fruit and peanut butter and believes in living in harmony with nature and not in competition with it. For this reason, he rarely kills animals or even plants. A true outdoorsman, in 1981, Conway hiked the Appalachian Trail, a 2,200-mile trip, in sixteen weeks. He canoed from St. Louis to New Orleans, a 1,030-mile trip, in a month.
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Record #:
8644
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In 1754, Englishman Arthur Dobbs arrived in America to take over as governor of North Carolina in the midst of the French and Indian War. To protect the state, Dobbs had Fort Dobbs built near present-day Statesville and made Hugh Waddell commander of it. On the night of February 23, 1760, the Cherokee Indians orchestrated an attack on the fort, but the defenders fought fiercely and the Indians backed down. By 1766, Fort Dobbs lay in ruins. In 1970, the fort was recorded on the National Register of Historic Places and restoration of it began. Today, the fully restored fort sits on a thirty-three-acre plot of land complete with a visitors center and playground.
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Record #:
8651
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Maymont, a huge house in Cramerton, was built by Stuart Cramer in 1917. The house has thirty-eight rooms, gigantic fireplaces, and a pool so deep that it once served as a reserve water supply for the town. A mill and industrial community grew up around the house, and Cramer, who bought many local mills, became the textile leader of the area. Senator George Tinkham of Massachusetts spent many months at Maymont, and area residents claim he predicted the war with Japan before it occurred. Although the house was bought by Burlington Industries in 1940 and began to sink into disrepair, Ray Andrews and his wife currently rent the house and are slowly restoring it.
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Record #:
8672
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In July 1916, after two tropical storms ripped into North Carolina's mountains within days of each other, the Catawba River in Gaston County flooded. Bridges were washed out, mills were flooded, and several buildings were taken downstream. The Southern Railway trestle collapsed on July 16th,and the nineteen men who had been standing on it died. In total, eighty people died and flood damage topped out at $22 million.
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Record #:
8674
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Hill Greene of Boone was ordered to take down his six-hundred-foot American flag after it was found to be in violation of City Ordinance V-4. The ordinance states that no over-sized business signs can be erected along the stretch of highway where Greene's Phillips 66 service station is located. One of Greene's employees, Eddie Cole, wrote to the Watauga DEMOCRAT and the story received national attention. Reporters from CBS, the White House, and even GLOBE, a tabloid out of Canada, flooded Greene's station to cover the story. On June 25th, the city announced it would not be enforcing the regulation in Greene's case, and his flag was allowed to continue flying. The ordinance will probably now be amended.
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