Once again engaged in one of my favorite pastimes — browsing back and forth between the Encyclopedia of North Carolina and the South Carolina Encyclopedia — I was pleased to find that in both of the Carolinas the Sport of Kings was, at least in the antebellum period, the king of sports. A love of fast horses brought us together. From the very beginning of the colonial era, Carolinians talked horses, raced horses, and bet on horses. As early as 1734, horses raced on Charleston Neck for a prize of a saddle and bridle. In our collection there is a copy of a map of Hillsborough, North Carolina, drawn in 1768, which shows a racetrack in addition to the handful of houses and public buildings. Horse racing went into a decline after the Civil War, but has made something of a comeback in recent times in both Carolinas.
Day: July 18, 2008
A Lost Wonderland
Has anyone in the great wide world of North Carolina Miscellany Land ever heard of Wonderland, North Carolina? I stumbled upon an image of it (see below) the other day while flipping through Views of Potter Farms Development : Showing Various Stages in the Evolution of Potter Farms, which is a wonderful pamphlet that we have in our vault collection.
From the description below the image and other clues in the pamphlet, Wonderland seems to have been in the Beaufort County region along a line of the Norfolk Southern Railroad. Did the town disappear like the Cheshire-Cat?