Word reached these parts today that workers have begun dismantling the old Washington Mills in Mayodan. The mill’s origins date to 1896 when Colonel Francis Fries and W.C. Ruffin built a dam on the Mayo River in Rockingham County and set up a factory to spin uncolored yarn. The town of Mayodan soon formed around […]
Archive for the ‘DigitalNC’ Category
Mayodan’s Washington Mills Disappearing Brick by Brick
Posted in DigitalNC, History, Just A Bite, Tar Heelia, Tar Talk on February 27, 2012 | 2 Comments »
More NC City Directories Online
Posted in DigitalNC, Tar Heelia on February 23, 2012 | 1 Comment »
We’ve been working steadily on the North Carolina City Directories digital project and now have well over 300 volumes online, representing 44 different cities and towns. The collection includes every directory from the North Carolina Collection published prior to 1940, as well as a few from the Durham County Library and Forsyth County Library.
Strange bedfellows of the ’30s: Hemp and yeggs
Posted in DigitalNC, History, Tar Heelia, tagged bugs bunny, crime slang, daffy duck, dashiell hammett, easter yeggs, golden yeggs, hemp nc, john edwards, robbins nc, southern pines pilot, the glass key, yegg on January 13, 2012 | 2 Comments »
What caught my eye on the 1935 front page of The Pilot of Southern Pines — thank you, NC Digital Heritage Center — was this headline: YEGGS CRACK SAFE IN POSTOFFICE AT HEMP, GET LITTLE Yeggs? Hemp? The Google Ngram Viewer charts the abrupt rise and fall of yegg as slang for safecracker or burglar. […]
Blue Mass
Posted in DigitalNC, Tar Heelia on January 9, 2012 | 2 Comments »
There are a lot of curiosities in the old newspapers we’re digitizing, but rarely do I come across any complete mysteries like this ad, which I found in the Fayetteville Observer from January 8, 1863. Do any of you know anything about Blue Mass?
North Carolina Newspapers on Twitter
Posted in DigitalNC, History on January 4, 2012 | 1 Comment »
If today’s headlines have you down, trying reading old news instead. The NC Digital Heritage Center makes its first foray into Twitter with @ncnewspapers, where we’ll be tweeting a historic headline every day from that day in history. The stories we feature will span the full range of North Carolina history from the 19th and […]
Occupy Charlotte, circa 1840s
Posted in DigitalNC, Tar Heelia on January 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Does this sound familiar? The most odious feature in this system is that it robs the MANY, imperceptibly, to enrich the FEW;–It clothes a few wealthy individuals with power not only to control the wages of the laboring man, but also at their pleasure to inflate or depress the commerce and business of the whole […]
Caro-Graphics: Do You Know Your State?
Posted in DigitalNC, Tar Heelia on December 27, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Many of the issues of the Southern Pines Pilot from the mid-1930s include a cartoon by Murray Jones, Jr. called “Caro-Graphics,” featuring odd and interesting facts and legends from North Carolina history. Here’s an example, from the October 15, 1937 paper: I thought I’d see if any Miscellany readers knew any more about these. I […]
Early Charlotte Newspapers Available Online
Posted in DigitalNC, Tar Heelia on December 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We’ve just added two early Charlotte newspapers to the North Carolina Newspapers digital collection. The Catawba Journal (1824-1828) and the Miners’ and Farmers’ Journal (1830-1835) document life in a town that was very different from today’s thriving metropolis. The Catawba Journal covered news of national and local importance, and printed some of the early discussions […]
“Old Slave Day” in Southern Pines, 1934
Posted in DigitalNC, History on November 22, 2011 | 2 Comments »
I found this fascinating photo in a November 23, 1934 issue of The Pilot, from Southern Pines, N.C. Apparently the inaugural Spring Blossom Festival, held in Southern Pines in April 1934 featured an “Old Slave Day.” The newspaper description reads: The Festival was featured by Old Slave Day, a day set aside for those of […]
North Carolina City Directories Available Online
Posted in DigitalNC, Tar Heelia on November 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Over 200 city directories from 34 different cities and towns are now available to search and browse on DigitalNC: http://digitalnc.org/collections/north-carolina-city-directories. Most of the directories in the digital collection are from the North Carolina Collection, with a few contributed by the Durham County Library and the Forsyth County Public Library. We are planning to add more […]
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