History

In 1932, a composer and WWI veteran named Lamar Stringfield united a gaggle of musicians to form the North Carolina Symphony. By 1935, they’d performed over 140 concerts all over the state.

From 1720 to 1870, North Carolina led the world in the production of tar, pitch and turpentine – products used to paint and seal wooden ships. From there, historians debate how the term “Tar Heel” originated.

In 1587, after a failed first attempt, the English again tried to colonize Roanoke Island. Received peacefully by the Croatoan tribe, the English established a healthy settlement.

“Nothing happens unless first a dream.” Carl Sandburg, one of America’s best-known, best-loved poets and writers wrote that back in 1922.

Stephen, a slave on the 1839 plantation of Abisha Slade in Caswell County, was tired from a long day of work. It was no surprise then that he nodded off from the heat of the fire he was watching to cure the tobacco.

To conduct the business affairs of a state – or a colony in earlier times – requires a place for leaders to meet. Of course, it has not always been Raleigh.

It was bloody and never pretty. In the early days of the North Carolina colony, Native Americans inhabited the land and none were more powerful than the Tuscarora.

It was first known as a school for teachers until it became a college. Now, it is one of the state’s foremost universities.

Lesley “Esley” Riddle is probably one of the most influential people in county music’s early days whom you have never heard of.

It may be hard for us to fathom, but school has not always been public and free. In the state’s early days, if you wanted to educate your children, you sent them to private school, often far from home.

He’s often considered the world’s greatest showman. But when P.T. Barnum spent a November Saturday night in 1836 at Rocky Mount Falls (now Rocky Mount), he mesmerized a crowd not with circus acts but with a sermon.

North Carolina entered a new era in its effort to regulate alcoholic beverage sales when the state’s first Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) store opened in Wilson on July 2, 1935, where over 800 bottles of liquor were sold.

John W. Thomas was always confident, a make-it-happen type of guy. He had to be. John grew up fast when his father died in 1810 when John was ten. By the age 17, he moved to Davidson County to mine for precious metals.

It’s officially called the Qualla Boundary, a name most of us aren’t familiar with. We know it by its more common name – the Cherokee Indian Reservation in Haywood County. How it came to be is an interesting story.

When you think of coal mining and coal mining disasters, you don’t think of North Carolina. But the Egypt Coal Mine opened in 1856 in the Deep River Valley in Lee County. It even spawned the Western Railroad, which moved coal to Fayetteville and was in operation during the Civil War.

We’ve all heard of Eng and Chang Bunker – the Siamese twins – who became famous and called North Carolina home. But there was another set of conjoined twins who never became as well-known because they were born into slavery.

In politics you often have the boss, the one who works behind the scenes, to pull the levers of power. Furnifold McLendel Simmons was the big boss of North Carolina politics early in the 20th century.

It’s the eternal home for the rich and famous, and for the poor and unknown. Located in Asheville, the Riverside Cemetery sits quietly and is often overlooked by residents and visitors.

Robert Babington was reading his newspaper in Gastonia in 1909, when he came across a disturbing article about a young crippled child who was refused admission to an orphanage because he was handicapped. Robert then realized that North Carolina had no hospital for handicapped children.

What’s unique about Rutherford College, North Carolina? Well, for one thing there is no college there. The small Burke County town built up around the college Robert Abernathy started in 1853; the town was later incorporated.

When outnumbered, a little ruse can work wonders.

Although the town he grew up in was – and still is – often called “Little Washington” to distinguish it from the nation’s capital, there was nothing little about Cecil’s imagination.

Most people think we have always received personal mail by going out to the mailbox. That has not always been the case.

James Kenan was a leader.

We’ve admired the basket weaver’s talent, as well as that of the wood carver and the folk dancer. And then we wonder, “Where did they learn to do that?”

No one goes to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill without hearing about the old Davie Poplar. It’s right there for all to see, right in the middle of campus.

North Carolina has long been associated with what many call the Bible Belt, and North Carolina Baptists have been a part of that fabric since it was a new colony.

Everyone loves a good show.

There is a difference. For those of us living in North Carolina, our state is different than South Carolina. Just like we are different than Virginia. So when newscasters refer to the “Carolinas” we know they are mistakenly lumping us together.

Asheville’s Habitat for Humanity ReStore will soon be selling Guatemalan roast coffee from Dynamite Roasting Co., a Black Mountain, NC-based artisan roaster of 100 percent certified-organic and fair-trade coffee.