Events – Page 9 – A View to Hugh

"For A Few Glorious Moments…"

Note from Elizabeth: This is the third post researched and written by volunteer Jack Hilliard. You can read the other two here and here.

On Saturday, June 5th, 1954, Hugh Morton staged yet another successful event at Grandfather Mountain. It was originally billed as “The Mile-High Kite-Flying Contest,” but high winds up on the mountain that morning prompted the contest to be moved down to McRae Meadows . . . so Bill Hackney, writing in the High Point Enterprise, renamed it the first annual “sky-high kite-flying contest.”
Youngsters 7 to 14 from all over western North Carolina were encouraged to participate. Morton had gotten three of his friends to judge the contest: Major Bill Craig, a Korean War jet ace (at right above), “Bobby Benson,” young radio cowboy star (at left, in cowboy outfit; the role of Bobby was played at the time by actor Clive E. Rice), and Charlie Justice, UNC’s great all-America running back (not pictured above, although footballer Otto Graham is, at center in blue sweater). Two of the many prizes awarded at the end of the day went to Bob Lineberger from Hickory for his original kite design and to Bobby Cooke of Boone for having the smallest kite (boys possibly pictured above? Note that we’re not absolutely sure this image was taken at the 1954 event; it might have been 1955 or 1956).

As Morton was handing out those awards on that windy June afternoon, I’m sure it never crossed his mind that twenty years later, another young man (though much older than Lineberger and Cooke) would come to Grandfather Mountain seeking permission to fly his “kite” at the famous landmark. The year was 1974, and John Harris of Kitty Hawk wanted to launch his hang glider off the peak of Grandfather.

Permission was granted, so on July 13, 1974, John Harris became the first man to fly a hang glider off Grandfather Mountain. The 1500-foot flight was described in The State magazine this way:

For a few glorious moments, Harris soared free of the earth, sailing effortlessly over the valley, with nothing but the mountain winds and a single wing to keep him aloft.

Up to that time, hang gliding had been associated with the North Carolina coast. Francis Rogallo and his wife Gertrude had set out in the early 1940s, near Kitty Hawk, to see if they could design a kite or flexible wing that could be held together in controlled flight by the action of the air itself. The result, patented in 1947, was the Rogallo Wing. Rogallo would come to be called “the father of hang gliding,” and on May 7, 1987, he was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. Hugh Morton was responsible for Rogallo’s nomination.

Hugh Morton was impressed by Harris’ flight, so much so that the following year the U.S. Open Hang Gliding Tournament was staged at Grandfather. The Tournament was called the Grandfather Mountain Hang Gliding Region VI National Championship and was staged June 7th and 8th, 1975.

Through the 1970s and into the 1980s, hang gliding flourished in the North Carolina High Country. Professional pilots gave demonstrations four times daily during the summer, weather allowing; the increasing popularity of competitions inspired Morton to sponsor the International Masters of Hang Gliding Championships. (He also made several award-winning films on the topic during this time: “Masters of Hang Gliding,” “Winning At Hang Gliding,” “Hang Gliding Around The World,” and “The Hawk & John McNeely,” versions of which are included in the Morton collection here at UNC).

Over time, the gliders became much faster and higher-performance, making the small landing areas at Grandfather increasingly unsafe. Demonstration flights were suspended in 1987.

UPDATE 6/1/09: From Elizabeth: We found an image that is almost definitely from the first (1954) Kite-Flying Contest at Grandfather. See below.
This means that the uniformed man in the first image in this post is not Major Bill Craig, as we indicated, but rather Col. Dean Hess, as commenter Julia Morton suggested (and the image on this page confirms). The uniformed man with Charlie Justice, above, is likely Major Bill Craig.

Azalea Festival memories

It’s that time of year again — the shrubs are blooming, the Queen has been selected, and Wilmington is all geared up for the 62nd annual celebration of “all that is Southern” — the NC Azalea Festival, which begins this week.
Stephen forwarded me a link to a charming article from last week’s Star News in which longtime Wilmingtonian Thurston Watkins, Jr. “remembers splendid, scandalous events from past Azalea Festivals.” In skimming through the article, I realized we had Morton images to illustrate many of the choice moments Watkins recalls. A few are included below.

Watkins reports: “Announcement of our festival to all points was accomplished by Ted Malone’s coast-to-coast radio show. Malone had mastered the art of descriptive English and would be considered an equal to Charles Kuralt’s abilities many years later.”

Watkins reports: “I remember the festival having a ‘close call’ with Queen trouble. Janet Leigh had agreed to be our Queen, but just before she was to arrive, her husband, Tony Curtis, canceled the deal. Hugh Morton was aware of a movie star, Cathy Downs, accompanying her husband at the Azalea Golf Tournament and approached her with our problem. She agreed to be the ‘short notice Queen’ and they secretly took her to Fayetteville and put her on a plane back to Wilmington. The arrival ceremonies turned out just fine and her ‘royal subjects’ never knew she hadn’t made the trip from Hollywood.” (The year was 1952, and Morton took several stunning portraits of Downs, including the one above).
And finally, one Watkins memory I just have to correct. He recalls “a ‘tipsy’ Wilmington Mayor crowning a Queen Azalea at Lumina, Wrightsville Beach—with the crown upside down—then proceeding to almost fall off the stage.” That tipsy mayor was actually the Governor of North Carolina, R. Gregg Cherry, who crowned the very first Azalea Queen, Jacqueline White.

As Susan Taylor Block recounts on page 26 of her book on the Azalea Festival, Belles and Blooms:

At her coronation ball at Lumina, Miss White’s composure was tested when Governor R. Gregg Cherry crowned her Queen Azalea I. The first citizen of NC had been in town all day, enjoying seeing a number of old friends. After spending hours socializing, the elderly gentleman was somewhat overdosed on Southern hospitality. He teetered dangerously close to the edge of the stage before placing the crown upside down on Miss White’s head.

This detail of Morton’s photo shows the upside-down crown:
NC Governor R. Gregg Cherry crowning the first Azalea Festival Queen, Jacqueline White, in 1948

Hugh Morton’s Short Run For Governor

From Elizabeth: This is a second post from our indomitable volunteer Jack Hilliard. Note that Jack (a retired WFMY-TV employee) directed the January 18 and February 29, 1972 Morton appearances he mentions below! Note also that the pinback button above is from the North Carolina Collection Gallery’s collection of political memorabilia.

The 1972 race for governor in North Carolina was notable for a number of reasons. Twelve candidates at one time or another . . . a unique news conference . . . two primaries . . . and finally the election of James Holshouser as the first Republican governor of NC in the 20th century. Between December 1, 1971 and February 17, 1972, Hugh Morton was one of those 12 candidates.

At a reception and banquet in the Carolina Inn on June 7, 1996, Hugh MacRae Morton accepted the 1996 North Caroliniana Society Award for contributions to and preservation of North Carolina’s history, culture, and resources. CBS newsman Charles Kuralt was on hand that night to honor his friend Hugh Morton and in his remarks, Kuralt set the scene for Morton’s short run for governor.

“Hugh Morton is North Carolina’s greatest promoter . . . but he never promotes himself, well, with one exception. On December 1, 1971, in the shadow of the Capitol in Raleigh, surrounded on a chilly day by shivering pretty girls in shorts wearing Morton for Governor hats and carrying Morton for Governor signs, with Arthur Smith playing Guitar Boogie for the crowd, with Charlie Choo Choo Justice on hand to declare, ‘I have been on Hugh’s team all my life,’ Hugh Morton formally declared his candidacy for governor.”

The Morton campaign was off to a great start, but there were a couple of problems. By December 1 many of Hugh’s friends were already supporting Lt. Gov. Pat Taylor or State Senator Hargrove “Skipper” Bowles. And any time one runs for governor, money is a concern. But Hugh had already visited all 100 counties in North Carolina and he knew he wanted to vitalize and “professionalize” the Department of Travel and Tourism — to bring in more visitors to gaze upon what he truly regarded as the glories of the Tar Heel state. A headline in the Greensboro Daily News called him “A Low-Key Campaigner With Time For Everyone.”

On Tuesday, January 18, 1972, Hugh held a news conference at the WFMY-TV studios in Greensboro for the Triad media. In response to questions, he said, “the biggest challenge for the next governor will be public education.” The news conference was taped and played back the next night. Following the news conference, Morton told the gathered newsmen that they had been part of a first — a “live, open, news conference paid for by a candidate for governor.”
On February 17, 1972, about 300 people gathered in Raleigh to witness Hugh’s official filing. But instead of a filing celebration, Morton made a dramatic announcement. He said that he had learned the night before that funds available to him would not be sufficient to permit a victory. “It would not be fair to subject my friends to a campaign that couldn’t be won,” he said. Hugh Morton had become a victim of the high costs of politics. His surprise withdrawal inadvertently dramatized the need for campaign spending reform at the state level.

On Tuesday, February 29, 1972, in his first major television appearance since his withdrawal from the governor’s race, Hugh Morton appeared on the WFMY-TV News and Public Affairs Program, “Newsmaker.” News Director Charles Whitehurst and reporter Dave Wright questioned Morton about his withdrawal from the race. Said Morton, “I knew that money wasn’t going to be a problem for Skipper and it was for me, so the smart thing to do was get out and that’s what I did.”

Finally, in July of 1982, Gary Govert wrote a Hugh Morton profile in Carolina Lifestyle magazine. The article includes this quote from Hugh Morton’s friend, former Governor Terry Sanford: “I think he’s one of North Carolina’s most outstanding citizens. He ought to have been governor.”

1953 Wilmington Shipping Co. Fire

I know what you’re thinking — ANOTHER Wilmington disaster? But this one was brought to my attention by someone outside the library, Battalion Chief Chris Nelson of the Wilmington Fire Department. And, it occurred almost exactly 56 years ago, on March 9, 1953.
Chris, his department’s recently-appointed historian, emailed us a few weeks ago looking for Morton images (included above and below) he had seen published in the newspaper. He wanted them for an article he was writing for an upcoming issue of the N.C. Fire & Rescue Journal.
Chris reports that “in the past the Wilmington Fire Department didn’t put much emphasis on its history, and we are now looking to other resources for gathering photos, writings, etc. I am in the process of forming a nonprofit historical association to make obtaining items a little easier.”
We hope Chris can make a trip to Wilson Library sometime soon to look at our other Morton images of Wilmington fires — and help us identify them!

The 1953 fire occurred at the Wilmington Shipping Company, a riverfront warehouse and docking facility, and was part of a series of large warehouse and storage buildings located along the Cape Fear River. Chris noted that these Morton images were taken pretty early in the fire’s progress. Below is a summary of the event that he generously sent me.

Did you know…
One of the largest and costliest fires in the history of Wilmington occurred on March 9, 1953. The fire, which broke out in the western end of the Wilmington Terminal Nitrate Warehouse, quickly escalated with a series of explosions that rained molten sodium nitrate over the area. The fire quickly spread from the nitrate warehouse to adjoining buildings, which contained tobacco and sugar. Fire lines were abandoned and crews regrouped. If it had not been for the valiant efforts of the Atlantic III, the fire would have spread southward along the waterfront. As many as 21 firefighters and civilians were injured in the fire, with one civil succumbing to his injuries a few days later. Approximately $30 million worth of property was destroyed. Incidentally, one of the remaining warehouses was destroyed in 1996 at the Almont Shipping fire.

"Great Winter Garden" event Mar. 5th

Van Eeeden cover Please join us this Thursday evening, March 5th, for a reception and lecture to celebrate the opening of the newest exhibit in Wilson Library‘s North Carolina Collection Gallery: Cultivating the “Great Winter Garden”: Immigrant Colonies in Eastern North Carolina, 1866-1940. Following a 5pm reception, historian Susan Taylor Block will give a talk entitled “Mules to Mozart: Holocaust Escapees at Van Eeden,” drawn from her 1995 book Van Eeden, which tells the story of a group of European Jews whose lives were saved during the Holocaust when they obtained agricultural visas and moved to a farm in Pender County, NC.
The book’s cover, as you can see, features a Hugh Morton photo of his grandfather Hugh MacRae, whose role in the establishment of NC’s agricultural colonies was explored in a recent post by Stephen.
We hope to see you there!

Disaster aboard the "Bennington"

Continuing the theme of somewhat obscure Wilmington-related disasters, I bring you the September 25, 1946 explosion and fire aboard the tanker “Bennington,” off the Wilmington coast.
According to Mrs. Julia Morton (if I remember the details correctly from my conversation with her on my visit to Grandfather about a year ago), when Hugh heard about the accident he immediately recruited someone he knew with a plane and flew out with his camera. The resulting images are quite dramatic, with the ocean’s waves visible through the gaping hole in the Bennington’s hull. Mrs. Morton told me that these were among what Hugh considered to be his best work (presumably in terms of photojournalism, rather than art).

The shots may have also been exclusive. Morton apparently sold them to the Associated Press, and the image above (or one very similar) appeared in a New York Times article (“Six Dead Landed After Tanker Fire,” 9/25/1946), which reported somewhat sensationally:

The vessel, owned by the Keystone Tankship Corporation, was rolling in heavy seas about 225 miles off Savannah when the explosion occurred. A member of the crew was blown over the ship’s bridge and died instantly. The forward lookout was burned to death . . . Three of the dead lived for several hours after they were injured.

I’m still unsure about the cause of the explosion, which was unknown at the time of the NYT report. A Google search conducted today yields little information except for some obituaries compiled online for one of the casualties, 22-year old Kenneth Plogger of Greenfield, IL.
Does anyone remember this event, or or know additional details?

Presidents' Day picks

Today, Monday, February 16, is Presidents’ Day (or “Washington’s Birthday,” in Virginia). Though most of America will be preoccupied with the Lincoln Bicentennial or stupefied by the great deals at their local auto dealerships, I would like to use this day to celebrate (or at least acknowledge) some Presidents who typically do not have bargains associated with them.

There are photos in the Morton Collection that depict Presidents Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. I have selected four to share.

First, one that I scanned last fall, and stored away for this very holiday. It was found between some images of athletes standing outside, and women posing with flowers — you just never know where this guy will show up.

It’s a young, barely-jowled Richard Nixon in a tent, eating an unidentifiable platter of food in a most aggressive fashion. His wife, Pat, sits beside him and appears characteristically patient. Why is he here, and what is he doing (besides aggressively eating)? Pat Nixon appears in many other pictures that are probably from the annual Azalea Festival, and we know that the Nixons attended the 1958 Rhododendron Festival at Roan Mountain, TN. Perhaps one of these events explains why this young, earnest couple is featured in this picture.

Here is a picture of another President, this time fully vested in the title of Commander in Chief, and in a more Presidential pose.

Yes, Dwight David Eisenhower, smiling grimly as the possibility of a national crisis looms: the 1957 desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School and the subsequent unwillingness of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. That’s why Hugh Morton’s friend and NC Governor Luther Hodges is there — the President summoned a crack team of five Southern Governors to try and uphold the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education in Arkansas while preventing riots.
Besides Eisenhower, Hodges, and a man that is most likely Faubus himself (second row, far right), the identities of the other men are unconfirmed. Who wants to help identify them?

Here’s something more cheerful: a beaming President Jimmy Carter, on the 1980 re-election campaign trail in Winston-Salem’s Tanglewood Park hosted by the applauding Governor Jim Hunt. But all the good will couldn’t help Carter overcome the fuss over the Iran Hostage Crisis, a flagging economy, and a 28% approval rating . . .

. . . and Carter instead had to vacate his post in 1981 for this affable, handsome Californian. Ronald Reagan, seen here in April 1959 at the Azalea Festival with Love Me Tender actress and Azalea Queen Deborah Paget, was at the time on the payroll of General Electric, hired to make motivational pro-G.E. speeches at various venues.
These pictures, taken individually, provide explicit and implicit narratives, but as a whole, what do they say about the American Presidency and the people who held its office? It is easier, instead, to see the narrative they present regarding their photographer, Hugh Morton: that he had access available to few, and the photographic ability to make something of it.

Mystery in mid-air

Yesterday’s truly remarkable North Carolina-related plane crash reminded me of some negatives from the Morton collection depicting the January 6, 1960 crash of National Airlines Flight 2511 near Bolivia, NC (outside Wilmington).
Both US Airways 1549 and NAL 2511 were headed out of New York City (1549 bound for Charlotte, 2511 for Miami), but their outcomes were decidedly different. While (thankfully) all 155 US Airways passengers and crew survived, on 1/6/1960, all 34 on board were lost. And the culprit was not a bird but a bomb.

The story of NAL Flight 2511 is gripping and remains unresolved. The cause of the crash was a dynamite bomb, originally believed to have been detonated by a passenger named Julian Frank in a murder-suicide. (Frank was being investigated for fraud and embezzlement and had bought valuable life insurance policies prior to the crash).

Other evidence, however, brought Frank’s guilt into question. Remarkable similarities to the crash of NAL Flight 967 a few months prior led some to suspect that the two incidents were connected. No one was charged in either case.

The full Civil Aeronautics Board Accident Report for NAL Flight 2511 is available online (click on “Historical Aircraft Accident Reports” to find it)—but be warned, some details (like some of Morton’s photographs not included in this post) are not for the squeamish.

Tar Heels are going bowling…again!

Note from Elizabeth: This post was written by someone whose name will be familiar to readers of this blog: our knowledgeable commenter Jack Hilliard. Hilliard is a North Carolina native, UNC-CH alumni (1963) and retired television producer/director (primarily for WFMY-TV in Greensboro). Hilliard got to know Hugh Morton through legendary UNC footballer Charlie Justice, and they worked closely together on the 2004 campaign for the Justice statue that stands in front of UNC’s Kenan Football Center. Hilliard now works as a volunteer for UNC Libraries, helping us identify Morton football images from the Justice era.

Butch Davis and his 2008 Tar Heels are headed to the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte on December 27. It will mark Carolina’s first bowl appearance since 2004, and will be their overall 26th. Hugh Morton covered several of those games over the years.

UNC’s first bowl game was the 13th Annual Sugar Bowl Classic (link to archival film of game) in foggy New Orleans on January 1, 1947. That game was billed as the “Battle of the Charlies.” Leading Coach Carl Snavely’s Tar Heels was freshman sensation Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice, and leading Coach Wally Butts’ Georgia Bulldogs was senior All America Charley Trippi. The Bulldogs were unbeaten, untied and ranked number three in the country. Carolina was 8-1-1 and ranked number nine. The game lived up to its advance billing. Carolina led 7-0 at the half, but Georgia came from behind twice in the second half to take the game 20-10.

The game was not without controversy. Two second half calls (or really one no-call and one call) went against the Tar Heels. An interception-lateral play was allowed to stand and put Georgia into scoring position and a Carolina interference call nullified a Tar Heel touchdown. (The interception-lateral play would be reviewed today, but since there was no replay in 1947, the call stood). When the 16mm film was developed and shown the next week, both plays were shown to be questionable — too late to help the Heels.

When the game ended, 75,000 fans stood and cheered both teams as the two Charlies shook hands at mid-field. That friendship would continue as both Justice and Trippi would meet as opponents seven times during their NFL careers between 1950 and 1954 — Justice with the Washington Redskins and Trippi with the old Chicago Cardinals. (Ironically, Justice’s first and last games as a professional, on 10/22/50 and 12/12/54, would come against Trippi and the Cardinals).

At 11:30 AM on Tuesday, December 31, 1996, a 20-car Norfolk Southern train pulled out of the station in Greensboro (the same way it had done on December 21, 1946) headed for New Orleans and this time for the 63rd Annual Sugar Bowl. 90 UNC players, managers, wives and special guests of the 1947 Sugar Bowl team would meet up with about 40 members of the ’47 Georgia Sugar Bowl team. . . including the two Charlies. Justice, Trippi, and Carolina’s 1946 Co-Captain Ralph Strayhorn took part in a pre-game 50-yard-line ceremony at the Louisiana Superdome on January 2, 1997.

The outcome of the 1947 Sugar Bowl was settled a long time ago, but for one final time, Justice and Trippi would replay that game played 50 years before and add their own “what ifs.” The reunion trip was truly “A Time Remembered and a Sentimental Journey,” and of course, Hugh Morton was there with his camera.

— Jack Hilliard

Birds with "grit and saucy swagger"

“It is not a bad sport, legal or illegal. At a time like this when the ‘inferiority complex’ is stalking around loose seeking whom it may devour, to see a bird, stuck and stabbed until almost bloodless, rise in his might and make one more supreme effort that finishes his enemy is a useful life’s lesson.”

This stunning quote comes from Bishop Joseph B. Cheshire’s 1930 memoir titled Nonnulla: Memories, Stories, Traditions, More or Less Authentic (links to a fully-digitized version). Since I paid brief homage to turkeys in the last post, I thought I would shift over to chickens for this one, specifically gamecocks. A small cache of cockfighting images in the Morton collection piqued my interest, so I did a bit of research into the history of this illicit “sport” in North Carolina.
A pair of articles from The State magazine from 1953 (the July 11 and September 5 issues) shed some light, leading me to the Cheshire book quoted above and to another 1949 memoir by Paul B. Barringer entitled Natural Bent, both of which include fascinating accounts of and opinions about cockfighting. (Although Morton’s cockfighting photos were taken around 1953 or perhaps a few years earlier, they were not used in either of the State articles).

The sport is as old as the state itself. From “Cockfighting: an Early Entertainment in North Carolina,” a 1965 North Carolina Historical Review article by B. W. C. Roberts, I learned that the first published mention of NC cockfighting dates from 1737, and that Sir Walter Raleigh himself “enjoyed a favorable reputation as a cocker.” I also discovered that “the owners of cocks considered them treasures and bred [them]…as if they were thoroughbred horses.”

Roberts provides us with the unpleasant detail that “steel-pointed, razor-sharp gaffs, varying in length from an inch-and-a-quarter to over three inches, were fastened to the cocks’ shanks.” And as we can see from the cropped Morton image below, the fights, or “mains,” were not just entertainment for men, but for women and children as well.

Judging from these various accounts and images, it seems that cockfighting practice changed little from the 18th century through the mid-20th. Although outlawed for quite some time, the practice has obviously continued for centuries, and remains a problem (as evidenced by Governor Easley’s 2005 signing of a bill to make cockfighting punishable as a felony).
Does anyone know the story behind these extraordinarily vivid Morton images? Where and when were they taken, and for what purpose?