If Parents Won’t Keep Kids Inside at Night, Police Will, 1922

“Curfew Law Is Made Effective in Lenoir,” from the Hickory Daily Record, October 4, 1922.

Lenoir, Oct. 4—Lenoir is one of the towns that has set a determination to care for the youth of the community, and especially where the parents are lax in parental authority in allowing their children to have such hours as they please, and run on the streets until late hours in the night. Hence the curfew law has been invoked, and Mayor V.D. Guire has set his foot down flat and solid, and gives out of the world that the city ordinance, No. 72, of the town of Lenoir will be strictly enforced according to the letter and spirit of the law. Therefore, he has caused the town to be posted to that effect.

Commencing with the first night of the first day of October the curfew rang, and the edict went into effect, and it says: “Children under the ages of 16 years will not be allowed on the streets after 9 o’clock at night, unless accompanied by their parents. The courthouse bell will ring at 9 o’clock each night. Children found on the streets after that hour can be found by their parents at the city lock-up if wanted.”

That’s Lenoir’s new move to keep the kiddies at home, if their parents will not look after the matter themselves.