December 16, 2007
Signs mark history all over North Carolina
By O.C. Stonestreet
The Office of Archives and History, a division of our state’s Department of Cultural Resources, has just released the 10th edition of the popular “Guide to North Carolina Highway Historical Markers,” edited by Michael Hill, who also did the previous edition.
The cover has photos relating to the career of “Tiny” Broadwick (1893 to 1978), who is recognized as an aviation pioneer and the first woman to parachute from an airplane back in 1913. Her marker is one of 15 in Vance County.
The previous edition, the ninth, was published in 2001, had 243 pages and 1,434 entries. This new edition has 265 pages and 1,543 entries.
Just stop a moment to think about what that means: Our state has many, many places of historical significance and interest displayed by “history on a stick,” as some have called the markers.
North Carolina has been called, with some justification, a “vale of humility between two mountains of conceit.” Well, it turns out that we Tar Heels have plenty to boast, too.
Subjects for the markers are diverse, to say the least. As one might expect, there are markers designating battles of the Civil and Revolutionary wars; the birthplaces of famous people, such as the one in Hertford County for Richard Gatling, inventor of the Gatling gun; one for Edward R. Murrow in Guilford County; and one for Edward Teach in Beaufort County, better known to history as the pirate Blackbeard.
There is even a marker pointing out the site of the state’s first ABC store in Wilson County, one for the state School for the Deaf in Burke County and one for rural electrification in Forsyth County.
If this is not diversity, I don’t know what is.
Historical events are not equally distributed. Some of our 100 counties have had more things happen within their borders than others.
Wake County, with Raleigh, has 78 markers, with one being for the North Carolina Department of Archives and History. New Hanover County, with Wilmington, has 62 markers; Guilford County, with Greensboro, has 56; and Halifax County, in the northeastern part of the state, has 47. I would have expected that Mecklenburg, our most populous county, to have had more than 31.
On the other hand, Jones County has but three markers, while Yadkin County, Graham County, Greene County and next door Alexander County all have but two. Pamlico County, on Pamlico Sound, has one marker, announcing to all that it was the first county with motorized school bus service in 1917. The same holds true for Tyrrell County on Albemarle Sound, its marker informing passers-by that it is the birthplace of Edward Warren, a noted surgeon, born in 1828.
Are these counties “historically impoverished,” or is it that they have not researched their own history and found subjects of significance?
I was surprised to find there are slightly fewer illustrations in this new edition, 107 in the new text versus 113 in the ninth edition, if I have counted correctly.
Iredell County has 17 highway history markers, the most recent erected in 1998 for the Barium Springs Home for Children.
There could also be highway historical markers in Statesville commemorating Tom Dooley’s two trials and execution, and one recognizing the Wallace Brothers Herbarium, in its heyday said to have been the largest in the United States.
The Bostian Bridge train wreck of 1891, the worst train accident in the state up to that time would certainly merit a marker, as would CCC Camp Anderson, now Anderson Park.
The southern end of the county should not be neglected, either.
There should be a marker in Mooresville as the birthplace of world-class artist, educator and humanitarian Selma H. Burke; a good case could be made for recognizing Coddle Creek ARP Church as the second oldest congregation of that denomination in the United States; and a state marker should have been erected at the site of Crowfield Academy in Mount Mourne.
A marker on N.C. Highway 150 near Lake Norman, telling of the Great Flood of 1916, would be appropriate for Iredell as well as other counties touching the Catawba River.
However, the most glaring omission concerns Davidson County, two counties east of Iredell.
How, I ask you, can the Department of Archives and History, the part of the state that recognizes and preserves things cultural, have overlooked the erection of a marker recognizing the Lexington area as the world center — nay, the hub of the universe — for North Carolina barbecue? How?
Such an oversight boggles the mind.
Still, this is a great reference book, and one that I carry in my car.
It would make a fine gift.
TO LEARN MORE:
The State Employees Credit Union at 142 Wilkesboro Road is expecting a shipment of the $15 books to arrive “any day now,” and, of course, you need not be a member of the state credit union to buy them.
The book can be ordered from Historical Publications Section, Office of Archives and History, 4622 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-4622.
All of the current state historical publications can be seen and ordered online at http://www.ncpublications.com.
You can also place orders by calling (919) 733-7442, ext. 0.
