A Second Tour of Duty for the Immortal Showboat

USS North Carolina Memorial Dedication

“Eternal Monument,” Gallant Battlewagon is dedicated Sunday.

The above headline in the Greensboro Record on Monday afternoon, April 30, 1962 recalled a remark by Admiral Arleigh A. Burke’s the previous day.  Fifty years later, A View to Hugh contributor Jack Hilliard takes a look back at the upcoming anniversary this Sunday of the dedication of the Battleship USS North Carolina.  For a prequel, you might want to read Jack’s post from last October, “A North Carolina homecoming.”

Admiral Arleigh Burke speaking at USS North Carolina Memorial Dedication
Retired Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke speaking at USS North Carolina Memorial Dedication. NC Governor Terry Sanford seated in right background.

Twenty one years and twenty days after its commissioning on April 9, 1941, the Battleship USS North Carolina was dedicated as a memorial to the 8,910 North Carolinians of all services killed in World War II.  Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, retired Chief of Naval Operations, was the principal speaker on April 29, 1962 at the dedication ceremony of the majestically moored battleship on the Cape Fear River near downtown Wilmington.

As she lies quietly here at Wilmington she is just as gallant as she was in the days when her big guns were firing.  She is gallant today because she stands silently to remind all who see her of our precious heritage, reminding us with her battle record and with the battle records of those to whom she is dedicated.

Burke then read the World War II roll call:

Guadalcanal, the Solomons, Saipan, Luzon, Iwo Jima, Okinawa . . . an eternal monument to brave men and a source of inspiration to all Americans.

The retired admiral expressed the hope that visitors to the ship in the years to come will “remember not only those who died—but why they died. And from this memory let us all strengthen our resolve to protect and preserve the blessings of freedom whatever the cost may be.”
Crowd onboard USS North Carolina during memorial dedicationMore than 2,000 people on the stern of the ship and thousands more in the nearby parking areas took part in the emotional ceremony . . . just as they had contributed money to the “Save-Our-Battleship” effort.  During the ceremony, the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission, headed by Chairman Hugh Morton and Vice Chairman Orville Campbell, drew praise for their tireless efforts to save the ship.
North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford, introduced by Master of Ceremonies Jim Reid of radio station WPTF in Raleigh, called the ship “North Carolina’s historic link with World War II . . . a great memorial to a fighting people.” He then reminded the audience that $315,000 had been raised to date, and more than 112,000 people had visited the ship since it’s opening on October 14, 1961.
Admiral Claude V. Ricketts, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, speaking at the USS North Carolina Memorial Dedication.Admiral Claude V. Ricketts, Vice Chief of Naval Operations added:

Her hull and her weapons may represent, in a way, a bygone era in the story of naval power and naval tactics, but her spirit remains modern and she will thereby continue to contribute in a great measure to the security of the United States and the moral fiber of her citizenry.

USS North Carolina Memorial Dedication, probably Charles J. O'Connor of St. Mary's Roman Catholic ChurchMinisters of three faiths also took part in the ceremony.  The Rt. Rev. Thomas H. Wright, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina delivered the invocation; the dedicatory prayer was by Rev. Charles J. O’Connor, pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Wilmington, and Rabbi Samuel A. Friedman of the Congregation of B’nai Israel, Wilmington, gave the benediction.  Commerce Secretary Luther H. Hodges, who as Governor was instrumental in acting on Jimmy Craig’s idea to save the ship, set out new marching orders for the old battlewagon:

We’re launching this great battleship on a second tour of duty . . . as a permanent reminder of freedom’s obligations.

Navy minesweepers plied the Cape Fear, ferrying guests from downtown Wilmington to the battleship site and later passed in review just before Army, Navy, and Air Force planes flew over in a magnificent aerial salute.
The radio broadcast of the ceremonies was offered to each radio station in North Carolina and adjoining states.  Wilmington television station WECT carried the proceedings live to coastal North Carolina.  Video tape replays were available to other TV stations.

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In 1969 Vice Admiral Ernest M. Eller, Director of United States Naval History, wrote:

North Carolina, the first of the new battleships of World War II, has special significance to the Navy and the Nation.  Her brilliant performance in gunnery in the Pacific with the fast carrier task force played an important role in our ultimate victory.  She well deserved to be enshrined.

 

Hugh Morton at the USS North Carolina
Hugh Morton on deck of the USS North Carolina during an event, probably the April 29, 1962 dedication.

Hugh Morton, in his 1988 book, Making a Difference in North Carolina, dedicated an entire chapter to the ship.  Said Morton:

The (USS) North Carolina’s record speaks for itself.  She was in all 12 offensive naval engagements.  Applying any plausible yardstick one cares to use, the USS North Carolina may well be the greatest battleship ever floated by the United States.  We who hail from North Carolina were in luck the day it was decided to name this particular ship for our state.

On January 14, 1986, the ship was declared a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.  So, on this the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the Battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55), I choose to believe there will be another gathering in a very special place.  Included will be, Burke and Ricketts, Sanford and Hodges, Morton and Campbell, Eller and Craig.  And as they did 50 years ago, leading this gathering will be Jim Reid along with Rt. Rev Wright, Rev O’Connor, and Rabbi Friedman.  All will be joined by 8,910 North Carolina heroes from World War II.

A double honor

Basketball was near and dear to Hugh Morton’s heart, and as we approach “March Madness” be forewarned: there are a few posts related to basketball in the offing.  Today,  A View to Hugh contributor Jack Hilliard takes a look at how the Justice Center at the University of North Carolina at Asheville got its name.

Charlie Justice standing outside the Charles Justice Sports, Health, and Physical Education Center
Charlie Justice standing outside the Charles Justice Sports, Health, and Physical Education Center

Last fall the Asheville City Council and the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners proclaimed Sunday, November 13, 2011 as “UNC Asheville Bulldog Day.”  On that day, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill head basketball coach Roy Williams, an Asheville native, took his Tar Heels to the “Land of the Sky” for a game with Eddie Biedenbach’s Bulldogs of the University of North Carolina at Asheville.  It was the inaugural game for the 3000-seat Kimmel Arena, the Bulldogs’ new home.  The Tar Heels won that game, but the Bulldogs have had a great season in their new facility, having won the Big South Conference regular season championship.
The road to the 2012 Final Four will pass through Kimmel Arena with the Southern Conference and the Big South Conference playing tournament games there.  For the thirty-five seasons leading up to the 2011–2012 campaign, however, UNC-Asheville played its home games in the Charles Justice Sports, Health, and Physical Education Center—a 1100-seat facility called Justice Center (sometimes called Justice Gym) which sits just south of the new arena on the UNCA campus.  For twelve seasons (1984-1995) this historic facility hosted the Southern Conference Tournament.  The complex, built between 1959 and 1968 when the school was the Asheville-Biltmore College, includes a basketball court, classrooms and offices, swimming pool, dance studio, gymnastics area, tennis courts, a track, and soccer field.

On Monday, February 24th, 1975, UNCA trustee chairman G. Hoyle Blanton announced the dedication of the Justice Center at a dinner meeting of the board of trustees at the Great Smokies Hilton.  The following Sunday, March 2nd, an editorial titled “An Honor for Choo Choo” in the Asheville-Citizens-Times explained why the trustees of the University of North Carolina at Asheville had voted to name its $1.75 million physical education and athletic complex for Charlie Justice:

Mention his name in almost any place in this country, and in some places outside of it, and a flood of warm memories are evoked. . . . UNCA, which correctly places academics above athletics, has honored a native son who managed to keep his perspective and still win.

I recall sitting at my desk at WFMY-TV in Greensboro in the spring of 1975 when I got a call from Ian MacBryde, WFMY’s Public Affairs Producer.  He had gotten a call from Pete Gilpin, UNCA’s Director of Public Information.  Gilpin wanted to know if we had any film of Charlie Justice playing for the Tar Heels that they might show at the dedication ceremony.  MacBryde and I decided to produce a fifteen-minute mini-documentary for the occasion.  Our piece became a part of the formal dedication of “The Charles Justice Sports, Health, and Physical Education Center” on November 28, 1975.  The ceremony was held between first-round games of the 10th Annual Optimist Tip-Off Basketball Tournament.
Dr. William E. Highsmith, UNCA Chancellor, was master of ceremonies that evening and presented Justice with a framed photograph of the facility.  Also taking part in the ceremony were Asheville Mayor Richard Wood, and Hendersonville City Commissioner and Justice’s UNC teammate Joe Wright.  Representing the consolidated UNC trustees was another Tar Heel teammate Art Weiner.  Rev. John McReadie Barr delivered the invocation.  Barr was the former rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Hendersonville where Charlie and his wife Sarah attended church when Justice was in the oil business with Wright.  Also on the program was Coach Ralph James, Justice’s high school coach at Lee Edwards High during the 1941 and 1942 seasons.
In his comments, Coach James said, “Charlie didn’t need much coaching.  You just told him the general idea and he did it.  In fact, he didn’t really need a coach.  All he needed was someone to tape his ankles and pump up the ball.”  Weiner congratulated Justice and said, “All of his teammates feel he deserves this honor.  His records still stand and his contributions will never be surpassed.”  Said Justice, “I often dreamed of being an All-America and playing for the University of North Carolina but I never thought it would come true.  But it wasn’t all me.  A lot of people made it possible for me to do some things on the football field.  Those are the people who are really being honored here tonight.”  Justice praised his teammates and coaches and then in true Justice form, he thanked his linemen who opened up those holes in the opposing lines.  He then thanked his wife.  “Without Sarah and the support of my family, this evening would not have been possible.”
During the week following the dedication ceremony, the Greensboro Daily News published Hugh Morton’s portrait of Justice standing in front of the building (seen above).  The photo caption read, “Choo Choo and His Building.”  The late Smith Barrier, Executive Sports Editor of the Daily News, commented on that March 2nd editorial saying, “An Asheville Citizen-Times editorial calls the dedication announcement ‘An Honor For Choo Choo.’  I would add an honor for UNCA.”

The Living Room of the University

A View to Hugh closes out the year with a contribution from Jack Hilliard celebrating the December 30th anniversary of a notable Chapel Hill landmark, the Carolina Inn.
Have a Happy New Year!

Carolina InnThe committee searching for UNC’s new athletics director, Lawrence Bubba Cunningham, met for more than twenty-seven hours and interviewed thirteen candidates before making its recommendation to Chancellor Holden Thorp.  The final selection was announced on October 14th, 2011.  Those interviews were not held in the Ernie Williamson Athletic Center.  They weren’t held in the Smith Center, nor were they held in the Kenan Football Center.  They took place in another very special place on the UNC campus.  A place UNC President Emeritus Dr. William Friday calls “The Living Room of the University”—the Carolina Inn.
On May 5, 1965, noted movie and TV actor Richard Chamberlain stayed at the Carolina Inn while in Chapel Hill for the World Premiere of the movie Joy In The Morning, which was based on a novel by Chapel Hill’s own Betty Smith.  The film was featured at the Carolina Theater.
About a month after the famous 1949 UNC vs. Notre Dame football game in historic Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame President John J. Cavanaugh paid a courtesy visit to Chapel Hill and met with Acting UNC President William D. Carmichael, Jr. and UNC All America Charlie Justice.  That visit took place in the Carolina Inn as well.

William D. Carmichael Jr.
William D. "Billy" Carmichael Jr. at an unknown event in the Hill Room at the Carolina Inn, circa 1940s to early 1950s.

Those visits were not unusual; many famous people have visited the Inn during its 87 year history—Eleanor Roosevelt, Kay Kyser, David Brinkley, Michael Jordan, Alexander Julian, Julius Chambers, John Motley Morehead, and Andy Griffith.  The list does go on.
It was ninety years ago this year, in the early fall of 1921, when John Sprunt Hill, distinguished alumnus and University trustee, checked into a Franklin Street hotel during a visit to the campus.  That hotel was likely the old University Inn.  Unable to sleep because of the unseasonably warm weather, Hill decided to take a walk across the moonlit campus.  When he arrived at the corner of Columbia Street and Cameron Avenue, he spent several minutes looking at the old wooden boarding house there operated by Mrs. Ralph Graves.  He envisioned a new more modern hotel on the site.  During the following months, Hill was able to purchase the boarding house and land from Mrs. Graves, and at the UNC trustee meeting on November 2, 1922, he proposed his plan for a “college inn,” which would be funded totally by alumni contributions.  To start the fundraising project, Hill offered the land and donated $10,000.  In early 1923, it became clear that the fundraising drive was not going to reach its projected goal of $100,000, so Hill decided to fund the entire venture on his own.  By the time the Carolina Inn’s dedication on December 30, 1924, John Sprunt Hill had invested over $250,000 in the building, equipment, and furnishings.  For the next ten and a half years, Hill maintained the inn.  Then on June 5, 1935, he presented the entire Carolina Inn property to the University.  In the following decades the Carolina Inn faced many challenges due the changing face of the university, but to this day it remains a featured centerpiece.
It seems that everyone who visits the Carolina Inn comes away with a favorite story.  Carolina’s great All America football star Charlie Justice was a huge fan of the inn.  He and wife Sarah lived there in early 1946 while they waited for a place in Victory Village.  Justice often recalled listening to a radio broadcast of Carolina’s NCAA championship game on March 26, 1946 in the lobby of the Carolina Inn.  The Justice family spent many nights at the inn during his playing days as well as football weekends during a span of 50 years.
One of my favorite Carolina Inn stories is one told by the late Bob Quincy, a former Sports Information Director at Carolina and co-author of the 1958 book, Choo Choo: The Charlie Justice Story.  On November 22, 1947, when Carolina defeated its arch rival Duke by a  score of 21 to 0, a Chapel Hill celebration was staged that was only rivaled by the one in 1929 when the Tar Heels beat the Blue Devils 48 to 7.  The dancing on Franklin Street went on for hours after the ‘47 game.  Finally, a weary bunch of Tar Heel fans, along with a couple of players, found their way to the Carolina Inn hoping to get a celebratory meal—only to find the dining room was closed.  James Weaver, an employee of the inn for forty years, met the students at the door and explained that closing time had long passed, but he said he would speak to manager Leigh Skinner to see if anything could be done.

“Sir,” said Weaver, “we just got to open up the dining room again.”
“We can’t, James,” said the manager.  “Rules are rules.”
“But you got the most important man in North Carolina standing out there goin’ hungry.”
“Do you mean to tell me Governor Cherry is in our lobby?”
“Oh, no, sir, not anybody like that.  I mean the MOST important—Mr. Charlie Choo Choo Justice.”

The dining room was opened and dinner was served.
Hugh Morton liked to tell the following story.  In April of 1953, Morton was hosting a banquet at the inn and needed an entertainer.  Someone suggested a young graduate student who was active in the Playmaker’s Theater.  Morton was able to hire the student for twenty-five dollars.  The student’s name was Andrew Griffith, and he delighted the audience with a hilarious monologue about a bumpkin at his first college football game.  Chapel Hill record producer Orville Campbell was in the audience and after the show rushed up to meet Griffith and told the young comedian he was star material.  Within a week or two, What It Was, Was Football was recorded and became a hit.  Not long after, Griffith was on Broadway in No Time For Sergeants.

Andy Griffith at Kenan Stadium, 1954
Andy Griffith performing "What it Was Was Football" at Kenan Stadium, September 25, 1954.

“I don’t claim all the credit for his success,” Morton would say in a 1984 Greensboro interview.  “I’m sure anybody with Andy’s great talent would have made it without my help,” but it was a night to remember in “The Living Room of the University.”

A North Carolina homecoming

USS North Carolina berthing
USS North Carolina berthing, Wilmington, N.C., October 2, 1961

October 2nd, 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of the USS North Carolina’s arrival in Wilmington.  Hugh Morton collection volunteer Jack Hilliard takes a look at the final days of the historic journey.

October 1961 was a busy month for photographer Hugh Morton.  UNC’s football Tar Heels played host to Clemson, the North Carolina Trade Fair opened in Charlotte, President John F. Kennedy came to Chapel Hill for University Day, and the UNC basketball Tar Heels began practice under new head coach Dean Smith.  But it would be the events of October 2nd that would become a defining episode in the legacy of Hugh Morton.

On October 17th, 1945 the battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55) entered Boston harbor.  The ship had spent forty months in the Pacific during World War II traveling 307,000 miles.  On its arrival, freighters, tugs, transports, and work boats cut loose with whistles, sirens, and bells for the North Carolina’s first salute back home.  During World War II, the ship had been credited with twenty-four enemy planes, one enemy cargo ship, and had participated in every major offensive engagement in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Tokyo Bay, earning fifteen battle stars.  In the summer of 1946, it twice visited the Naval Academy at Annapolis to embark midshipmen for training cruises in the Caribbean.  Then in October the North Carolina returned to its birthplace, the New York Navy Yard, for inactivation.  On June 27th, 1947 it was decommissioned and assigned to the 16th Fleet (inactive), Battleship Division 4, Atlantic, relegated to fourteen years of retirement at Bayonne, New Jersey.

USS North Carolina at Bayonne, New Jersey
USS North Carolina at Bayonne, New Jersey, no date (P0081_NTBR2_006361_10)

In 1958 a brief news item appeared in the media saying the World War II battleship was going to be scrapped by the United States Navy . . . sold for junk.  When James S. Craig, Jr. of Wilmington heard the news, he was outraged.  Craig set out to save the old ship.  He was able to get Governor Luther Hodges’ attention and support as well as that of incoming Governor Terry Sanford.  Hodges sent a dispatch to Washington requesting that the Department of the Navy postpone its plans to destroy, pending an investigation by the state into the possibility of salvaging the ship. On June 1st, 1960 the North Carolina was stricken from the official Navy list.
A little over five months later, on November 11th, 1960, Governor Hodges appointed the USS North Carolina Battleship Advisory Committee to investigate the feasibility of establishing the warship as a state memorial.  In the spring of 1961, a bill was introduced in the legislature creating the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission.  Hugh Morton was installed as chairman.  During the next five months Morton and his commission initiated an intensive “Let’s bring the USS North Carolina home” campaign that raised the needed funds.

Battleship USS North Carolina Commission visit to the White House, 1961.
Battleship USS North Carolina Commission visit to the White House, 1961.

The United States Navy turned the battleship over to the state of North Carolina in a ceremony in Bayonne on September 6, 1961, with noted newsman Lowell Thomas as master of ceremonies.  The ship’s towing to North Carolina was scheduled to begin on September 25th, but the remnants of Hurricane Esther had other ideas.  A one-day delay was in order.  The weather on Tuesday, September 26th was better and a proud warship headed home.  Instead of an infamous journey to the junkyard, the USS North Carolina’s final voyage would be to a memorial berth in Wilmington, North Carolina—and the stage was set for a true North Carolina homecoming.

Soon after 9:00 a.m. on September 26th, the 45,000 ton USS North Carolina was moved away from its dock at Bayonne.  Five tugs alongside and two others at the bow eased the battleship out into New York Harbor.  Several ships in the harbor gave the majestic North Carolina salutes with their deep-throated horns as it moved down the channel through the narrows to lower New York Bay and then the open sea.  Captain Axel Jorgensen of the lead tug Diana Moran answered each salute.  For the next four days, the Diana Moran and its sister tug the Margaret Moran guided the big ship down the east coast.  On Saturday afternoon, September 30th, the ship circled slowly the lee of Frying Pan Shoals, awaiting an early Sunday morning tide to assist its trip up the Cape Fear River.  The plan was to enter Southport Harbor about 7:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 1st.  But once again, mother nature stepped in: an unexpected northeaster blew in over coastal Carolina, bringing rain and low visibility.

North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford and the USS North Carolina, 1961.
NC Governor Terry Sanford in a borrowed Coast Guard cap, squinting, with the Battleship USS North Carolina on the water in the background. Cape Fear River, off Southport, N.C., October 1, 1961.

The battleship USS North Carolina spent its final night at sea just off Cape Hatteras—the “Graveyard of the Atlantic”—near the skeleton of the Laura E. Barnes, which wrecked off the Dare coast before the turn of the 20th century.  Then at 8:00 a.m. on October 2nd, the ship began the last twenty-seven miles of its final journey.  Thousands of spectators lined the river banks to watch.  Scores of boats followed the big ship as it was pulled by the Coast Guard cutter Cherokee and guided up the winding channel by a fleet of eleven tug boats.  As the North Carolina approached downtown Wilmington at 3:30 p.m., the crowds grew larger.  Bleachers had been set up at the Customs House, and people could be seen hanging out of buildings trying to get a look at North Carolina’s newest tourist attraction.  A band played “Anchors Aweigh” as the battlewagon cleared the Cape Fear River at 5:37 p.m.

USS North Carolina berthing, October 2, 1961.
Aerial view of tugboats maneuvering the Battleship USS North Carolina into its berthing place on the Cape Fear River, across from the Federal Court House in Wilmington, N.C., October 2, 1961.

“The berthing at Wilmington was one of the most tense moments in my lifetime,” said Morton in his 1996 book, Sixty Years With a Camera.  “If it did not work, we knew we had a mighty big ship that would make a formidable dam on the Cape Fear River.”  But it did work: at 5:40 p.m. on October 2nd, 1961, Rear Admiral William S. Maxwell, Jr. USN, Retired, superintendent of the Battleship Memorial, pronounced the USS North Carolina was home.
During World War II, the Japanese claimed six times to have sunk the North Carolina, but the gallant battleship survived every onslaught.  And when it was doomed for the junkyard the people of the great state whose name it had carried during the war, and led by planner and organizer Hugh Morton, saved it for future generations.

Unfortunately, James S. (Jimmy) Craig, Jr. did not get to see the mighty battleship slip majestically into its memorial shrine at the Port of Wilmington.  He was in the Army Burn Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in critical condition from injuries suffered in an air show crash just eight days earlier.  He died on October 14th, the day “The Showboat” first opened to the public.

Islands of the Pacific revisited

Hugh Morton in Manila Chinese Cemetery

Hugh Morton with camera, Manila Chinese Cemetery, Philppines, circa March 1945.

During the Memorial Day weekend, I looked online through the numerous photographs made by Hugh Morton during his tour of duty in the South Pacific during World War II as a photographer (still and moving image) with the United States Army 161st Signal Photographic Company.  The idea was to have a military post related to the holiday.  I must confess that the exercise consumed the greater portion of my holiday weekend, but it was enjoyable and educational!  It also was rewarding because my journey through the collection, using the geographical subject heading “Islands of the Pacific,” led to several corrections with some interesting new identifications.  Unfortunately it has taken some time to update the catalog records, plus some of the master scans were “M. I. A.” so I needed to rescan those negatives.  That extra work meant that this post got pushed into June—and there’s enough material to merit more than one post.

The delay turns out not to be a such bad thing, however, because significant events in the war in the South Pacific took place during the month of June 1945—particularly on Luzon that lead to the liberation of the Philippines, declared on July 5th.  Ironically it was through that country’s two national heroes from the Spanish-American War—Andrés Bonifacio, and José Rizal—that I was able to identify the actual locations depicted several photographs.
Our first stop on this virtual expedition, however, is 4,000 miles southeast of Manila: Nouméa, New Caledonia.
Noumea, New Caledonia

Nouméa with Mount Dore in the distance, New Caledonia, circa late 1943–1944.

Many of the “misidentified” images are from a batch of negatives that Morton originally labeled “Noumea, New Caledonia.”  Nouméa is the capitol of New Caledonia, a country formed from a group of islands that are more than 900 miles east of Australia.  Nouméa is located on the southwestern coast near the southern tip of a long slender island called Grande Terre and situated on a protected harbor with a small island, Ile Nou, just offshore.  In 1942 the Allies needed to relocate the center of their Pacific operations from Auckland, New Zealand to a place closer to the “front.”  New Caledonia had been a French colony since the mid 19th century, and Nouméa was significantly closer to the action.  During the summer and autumn of 1942, the United States Navy and Army constructed extensive facilities at Nouméa, and on 8 November 1942 Nouméa became the official headquarters of the Allied Commander of the South Pacific.  New Caledonia also became home to many USO performances by Bob Hope and others, which Morton photographed in 1944.
When the army shipped members of the 161st Army Signal Corp to the Pacific, including Hugh Morton sometime in late 1943 or early 1944, they likely landed first in Nouméa.  Above is a scenic photograph by Morton of Nouméa with Mount Dore in the distance, scanned from the original negative with a U.S. Army Signal Corp identification number 22-16 along the left-hand edge.  Another scan in the online collection is from a cropped print.  The snapshot photograph below, with Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in the background, is the only other positively identified view made Nouméa. The original 2.5 x 3.5-inch negative is in the Morton collection, but it has not been scanned.
Street scene, Noumea, New Caledonia
So far, these are the only two images positively identified as Nouméa.  When Elizabeth Hull processed World War II material in the Morton collection, she made a note in the finding aid alerting users that many of the images in that the batch of negatives may not be of Nouméa.  Many of those negatives can now be assigned their proper place on the map: the Philippines, where Morton’s military service concluded in the spring of 1945.  The next post (or posts) on this trip back to the South Pacific will be a reflection of Morton’s tour of duty: “island hopping” our way to the Philippines.

Loafer’s Glory, or happiness in the hills

I want to go back to Loafer’s Glory and have another cup of coffee in the small diner there, look out the windows at the wooded hills, maybe while away some time “just sittin,” as the mountain folk say. Watch the play of light and shadow on the mountains and perhaps discreetly observe the people as they come and go.

Thomas James Martin, 2001

In my last post, I mentioned a messy box of roll film I found, previously overlooked, in the stacks. As dirty and jumbled as the box was, I assumed it would be filled with, shall we say, less-than-premium examples of Hugh Morton’s work. I was (at least partially) wrong. Among the many rolls of the Morton sons’ high school basketball games I found shots of Terry Sanford’s 1961 inauguration as NC Governor, Kerr Scott at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, and Billy Graham preaching at “Singing on the Mountain” in 1962, among other high-quality scenes.

I also found an intriguing roll of 120 film depicting a North Carolina destination with which I was unfamiliar — a very small community in the NC mountains called “Loafer’s Glory.” To quote Mr. Martin again, “Loafer’s Glory is a wide place in the road in the mountains of western North Carolina. At last count less than a hundred souls live in the community, but at least there is a caution light marking the spot on NC Highway 226 where it it intersects NC 80 of this ‘gloriously’ named town near the Tennessee border perhaps 50 or 60 miles west of Asheville.” (Be sure to read the entirety of Martin’s lovely article on the importance of taking time to “loaf”).

According to a resource on Mitchell County Place Names, Loafer’s Glory “is probably Mitchell County’s most famous named place. Located at the bend of the river about three miles north of Bakersville, Loafer’s Glory was reputedly coined by the women of the community, who took a dim view of the men’s habit of ‘lollygagging’ on the porch of the community soter, rather than working.”

Hugh Morton appears to have visited the community sometime in the 1950s-early 1960s, on his way to or back from a “hillbilly festival” taking place in the middle of the road (the two shots below are on the same roll of film as the Loafer’s Glory images). The road signs for highways 64 and 28 in the bottom image would indicate a location of Highlands, NC, which then leads me to the distinct possibility that these are shots of “Highlands Hillbilly Days.”

According to Anthony Harkins’ Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, the Hillbilly Days were held each August between 1951 and at least 1957 — “participants dressed as hillbillies and participated in beauty contests, as well as the more traditional pursuits of wood chopping, square dancing, and ballad-singing” (263).

Can anyone verify this? Is this, in fact, “Highlands Hillbilly Days”? And, have you ever loafed in Loafer’s Glory?

"Unto These Hills"

Note from Elizabeth: Sixty years ago today, the historical drama “Unto These Hills” premiered at Cherokee, NC. We’re thrilled to present a guest post on the topic by Worth 1,000 Words essay author Andrew Denson of Western Carolina University.

This month marks the sixtieth anniversary of the outdoor historical drama “Unto These Hills,” which debuted in Cherokee on the evening of July 1, 1950. A vivid recounting of Cherokee history from European contact through the Removal era, the play was an immediate success, drawing large audiences throughout its first season. “Huge crowds have been present,” The State magazine proclaimed in its July 15, 1950 issue, and “everyone who has seen it thus far is enthusiastic.” Drawing more than 100,000 viewers in its first season alone, the drama quickly became one of Western North Carolina’s premier tourist attractions. In a significantly revised form, it remains popular today.

Hugh Morton captured some of the excitement of those early performances in a series of striking color images, now preserved in the Morton digital collection. The play’s dance sequences, in particular, seem to have drawn his photographer’s eye. He documented the “harvest dance” seen at the beginning of the drama and meant to express the Cherokees’ respectful relationship with the land (they “possessed it with gentleness and humility, with peace,” reads the script by Kermit Hunter). He also recorded the athletic “eagle dance,” which reviewers of the drama invariably cited as one of play’s most arresting moments. With modern choreography by UNC drama professor Foster Fitz-Simons, these performances bore little resemblance to traditional Cherokee dance, but they certainly gripped viewers’ attention. Fitz-Simons’ version of the eagle dance, in fact, became an all-purpose emblem of the drama, appearing in advertising for “Unto These Hills” for years to come.

The original “Unto These Hills,” it must be said, was rather poor history. Kermit Hunter, who wrote the script as a UNC graduate student, knew little about the Native American or Appalachian past, and his research seems not to have extended much beyond a cursory reading of James Mooney’s Myths of the Cherokee. Hunter portrayed Cherokees sympathetically, as honest people who loved and defended their land, yet his Indian characters were little more than stereotypes. Seeking to appeal to a broad audience, Hunter relied on familiar images like the “noble savage,” turning fascinating figures like Sequoyah and the Cherokee leader Drowning Bear into flat caricatures. The play depicted real events, but only in a form devoid of historical complexity.

But perhaps that judgment is unfair. The creators of “Unto These Hills” transformed a somewhat obscure historical subject into compelling popular entertainment, which was no small feat. In the process, the drama may have accomplished something more. For all of its flaws, “Unto These Hills” ensured that several generations of visitors to the mountains departed knowing that Western North Carolina was the Cherokee homeland and that Cherokees had persisted there. That was a message worth broadcasting. Sixty years later, it remains so.
–Andrew Denson

REFERENCES

Beard-Moose, Christina Taylor. Public Indians, Private Cherokees: Tourism and Tradition on Tribal Grounds. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009.
Finger, John R. Cherokee Americans: The Eastern Band of Cherokees in the Twentieth Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.
Hunter, Kermit. Unto These Hills: A Drama of the Cherokee. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951.
The State, July 15, 1950.

The Old Well, an enduring symbol

Note from Elizabeth: It seems as good a time as any to offer tribute to that storied Chapel Hill icon, the Old Well. Morton collection volunteer JACK HILLIARD does so below. Jack hypothesizes that Morton must have taken “dozens” of photos of the Old Well — in fact, there are more like 500 in the Morton Collection (see Series 5)!

On a beautiful November morning in 2004, several of us gathered at the Kenan Football Center to put in place the Charlie Justice statue for its dedication two days later. Once everything was in place and secure, we all went our separate ways.

Since I had parked in a parking deck downtown, I had to make the long walk across campus. As I crossed Cameron Avenue just behind Old Playmakers Theatre, I notice to my left in front of South Building, Hugh Morton was setting up his camera in order to catch one more shot of the Old Well. There must be dozens of Old Well images in the Morton collection, and each is unique; this one would show the late morning sun casting its rays across the famous landmark.

The Old Well is the most enduring symbol of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and it serves as part of the official UNC logo. It is at least as old as Old East dorm, and that dorm is the oldest public university building in the United States (dating from the 1790s).

Old Well, 1902, from the NCC Photo Archives’ Collier Cobb Collection

For many of those early years the Well served as the sole water supply for Old East and Old West dorms. Then in the fall of 1897, UNC President Edwin A. Alderman, with the help of Professor J. W. Gore, ordered the Well be given its current decorative form, at a cost of 200 dollars. Some of his colleagues thought he was wasting money, but Alderman and Gore prevailed. The UNC Class of 1954 added the benches, brick walls, flower beds, and trees.

It is said that a drink from the Old Well on the first day of classes will bring good luck for the semester, and a final snapshot on graduation weekend will bring good luck forever. There must be something to that. On graduation/reunion weekend 2010, the line for pictures stretched all the way down Cameron Avenue.

Today UNC’s Old Well is recognized as a National Landmark for Outstanding Landscape Architecture by the American Society of Landscape Architects. (Thankfully, it is afforded special protection during weekends when State and Duke games are scheduled!).
–Jack Hilliard

The Mountain: before, during, and after Morton


As I hope you noted in my last post, the almost 71,000 Hugh Morton images from the Grandfather Mountain Series are now part of the collection’s online finding aid and are open for research. These images date from the late 1930s through the early 2000s, and thoroughly document Morton’s intimate, life-long connections to the Mountain.
In the latest essay in our Worth 1,000 Words series, scholar DREW A. SWANSON explores this relationship and also reminds us that the Mountain was there long, long before the man, and will exist long, long after. How did tourism and development affect the Mountain’s ecosystems before Morton inherited it? What impacts did his actions, in the areas of both development and conservation, have? What can we expect in its future as a state park?
Read Drew’s essay, entitled Grandfather Mountain: Commerce and Tourism in the Appalachian Environment, and let us know your thoughts about these issues.

Capturing Cherokee, NC


The latest in our series of essays inspired by photographs from the Hugh Morton Collection focuses on images made of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, whose Qualla Boundary lands are primarily in eastern Swain and northern Jackson Counties, just south of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The essay, “More than Tourism: Cherokee, North Carolina, in the Post-War Years” is by Andrew Denson, Assistant Professor of History at Western Carolina University. Denson specializes in Native American history and the 19th-century United States.