Flooded 'Watauga Will Be Cared For' Promises Newspaper Editor, 1916

“Watauga Will be Cared for,” from the editorial page of the Watauga Democrat, Boone, N.C., August 3, 1916, R.C. Rivers, proprietor

The good Old North State is acting nobly in her efforts to provide for the destitute in the flood-swept sections within our borders, tens of thousands of dollars already having been raised by Greensboro, Charlotte, Winston-Salem and other cities and towns in the State. 

Our sister county of Caldwell, who has suffered so fearfully from the effects of the flood, has taken the situation in hand, and will care for her own people, courteously refusing any outside help, for the present, at least. In the Mortimer and Edgemont sections of the county, there are 19 families, representing 110 people, who are, temporarily, on the charities of the people. The people of Buncombe county are also taking care of their unfortunate sufferers. 

The stricken people of Wilkes were the first to receive outside aid, and probably needed it the worst. But, what we started out to say, is, that when the first news of the terrible destruction wrought in the western part of the State, and an appeal for national aid was made, Watauga was in the list of destitute counties for which an appeal was made. Watauga, to be sure, has received the hardest blow ever, but conditions are not so bad, by a great deal, as they were first considered. ‘Tis true the loss in crops, etc., has been considerable, but fortunately no homes were wrecked, and all still have a good fighting chance for a living, as the demand for labor just now is great, and if, perchance a little help is needed, the generous hearted people of this God-favored county will come to their rescue, which they are eminently able to do. 

To be remembered by friends in the outside world, when we are considered in want, is indeed gratifying, and how it is appreciated can never be expressed, but at this juncture we are pleased to announce to the big-hearted philanthropists who were endeavoring to contribute to our needs, that it is not needed; in fact, we believe that it is the duty of Watauga, when we consider how doubly blessed we have been through the fearful ordeal, to contribute to the relief of the stricken in other counties, where homes, crops and lands were carried away by the rushing waters. Watauga is all right yet, but for the majority, the next year will doubtless be hard enough to demand the most rigid economy we have ever known.

Gen. J.S. Carr of Durham Helps People Suffering from Flood, 1916

The Monroe Journal, “The Union County Newspaper—Everybody Reads It!” Published Tuesdays and Fridays—One Dollar a Year. Friday, August 4, 1916

General J.S. Carr of Durham has gone to western North Carolina for the purpose of giving his personal help to the people who suffered by the flood. Congress has appropriated $540,000 for relief work in North and South Carolina and Alabama. It will be distributed under the direction of the secretary of war.

30 Counties Suffering in Historic Flood, Stricken Appalachia, 1916

“Stricken Appalachia,” from the Watauga Democrat, Boone, N.C., August 3, 1916

Not in the history of North Carolina, and seldom in the history of the country, has there occurred such loss of both property and of life by cloudburst and flood as that which on the 15^th and 16^th of July befell our beautiful and boasted Land of the Sky.

Thirty or more counties overswept; 80 or 100 lives lost in the swollen waters; scores of railroad and county bridges swept away; hundreds of farms robbed of their crops, and either piled deep in sand or eaten down to the rocks; many humble homes, many lumber plants and cotton factories and grist mills, caught and tossed like toys in the raging torrents; landslides and washouts playing havoc with railroads and highways; towns and villages isolated from each other and from the outside world; trains marooned for days at various points where the floods caught them and cut them off, and thousands of summer visitors marooned at our mountain resorts; damage done which conservative experts place at from 10 to 15 million dollars; for once and for the first time, the strange cry for outside help to keep at bay the wolf of want coming from the most self-reliant and most independent of our people:--all go to show that fair Appalachia has been stricken to the heart by this monumental disaster.

For days the rain had descended until the ground was soggy and the brooks were flush; then more torrential became the downpour; then cloudbursts here and there leaped down upon the headwaters along the Blue Ridge, east and west; then dams began to burst one after another down the streams until their accumulated waters, sometimes wall-like to the height of 10 feet or more, swept everything before them in their uncontrollable onrush; and vast was the ruin wrought before the rivers ran down and the flood assuaged.

The Catawba, draining the largest basin of the flood area, succored by hundreds of turbulent tributaries, and spanned by scores of dams which gave way, rose 40 feet or more above normal and rushed seaward on such a rampage that no bridge of steel could withstand it, no telegraph or telephone wires were left above it, and the civilization it has supported along its banks was driven back aghast to the overlooking hills. The same story of devastation comes from the Yadkin river which left its ineffaceable scars in the great county of Wilkes and wrought much more havoc as it tore its way onward. Nor is the picture brighter in the valley of the Broad with many farms and homes laid waste. And beyond the Blue Ridge the flooded Swannanoa and French Broad submerged lower Asheville, put Biltmore under water, took their toll of human life, destroyed many a fair field and paralyzed for a time the traffic of a great region teeming with visitors from near and far.

Stricken Appalachia!

But the men of the mountains and of the rolling Piedmont are not the men to either murmur at their misfortune or idly bemoan their fate. In tears they have buried their dead, but in hope and with a will they have already set their hands to the task of repairing the damage done to their delightful land. Some of them will need and welcome the generosity extended to them by their neighbors round about and by sympathetic friends throughout the State; and there is talk of Federal aid in order to relieve dire distress in certain quarters. Let the cry for help be heard and heeded until the stricken home is rebuilt and the unfortunates among the proud and mighty people are on their feet again.

And out of this awful experience will emerge a people bettered by the discipline of adversity and capacitated for the rebuilding of their neighborhoods on yet securer foundations, civic, social and religious. Let them not forget to conserve the forests that crown the mighty hills and hold back the destroying waters. Let those who harness the power of those swift mountain rivers build stronger dams which will withstand the greatest pressure than can be brou’t against them. Let the bridge builders do their work hereafter in view of the maximum floods of 1916. Let no landowner or tenant erect his residence, whether palace or cot, in the danger zone. And above all, let us always look up, with gratitude for His goodness and with trust for His continued care, to Him “who maketh the clouds his chariot,and who walketh upon the wings of the wind.”

To our people in the stricken highlands we send a message of mingled condolence and good cheer—the one in sympathy for their loss, the other to hearten them in their task. The flood has receded. The rainbow of hope overspans the desolation. A new day is shedding its eflulgence all over Appalachia. Such prospects are before us as never stirred or impelled any people. “God’s in His heaven; all’s well with the world!”

                --From the Biblical Recorder

Western North Carolina and the Flood of 1916

For a wonderful account of the Flood of 1916 and additional pictures, read Our State magazine’s account published in 2010. It is online at https://www.ourstate.com/flood-of-1916/

After this picture was taken, the rest of the railroad bridge fell into the flood waters. Photograph by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS; courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce.

Bowman Gray Foundation Gifting Wake Forest College's Medical School, Baptist Hospital, 1939

“Medical Gift Pleases Wake” from the August 8, 1939, issue of the Burlington Daily Times-News

Wake Forest Alumni and Other Supporters Proclaim Four-Year-School Program. Bowman Gray (1874-1935) was the former president and chairman of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Winston-Salem. 

The announcement Sunday by the Trustees of Wake Forest College of the acceptance of the benefactions of the Bowman Gray Foundation, which will result in the removal of the Wake Forest two-year medical school to the grounds of the Baptist hospital in Winston-Salem and the addition of the final two years of senior clinical medical work has received widespread acclaim among the alumni and other friends of the college who on every hand have expressed grateful appreciation.

Considerations which led to the acceptance of the offer and some of the benefits to be derived therefrom have been cited by college officials as follows:

The logical relationship of the four-year medical school of Wake Forest, operating in conjunction with the Baptist State Convention’s hospital at Winston-Salem offers an argument in favor of that location that is overwhelming. It is unique in this area of the State. Such a co-ordination immediately offers for use the medical school a wonderful opportunity to serve the public. In effect, it adds the hospital to the resources of the denominational effort in medical training and brings to its assistance the reserve of the medical school that in years to come will add tremendous prestige both to the college and the hospital.

The acceptance of the Gray memorial, in effect, amounts to the addition of a much needed science building on the Wake Forest campus. The William Amos Jackson Memorial Building, now released, will continue to serve its donors by housing adequately the pre-medical sciences. It contains splendid laboratories and classrooms sufficient for 250 students in the pre-medical sciences and in addition will afford an excellent departmental library, three research rooms, six offices, and six private laboratories for the professors.

North Carolina Western District 4-H Leadership Conference, 1956

“Western District 4-H Leadership Conference,” from the August 1956 issue of Extension Farm-News. Look at the photographs. They may be calling it camp, but there are no shorts to be seen.

Staff member Jean Shields prepares name tags for delegates who register. Avery County delegates include Bill Biggs, Tommy Norman and Niel Stewart.

Margurite Shook’s class interests both 4-H’ers and also Jackson County Agent Paul Gibson.

Staffer Bob “Oink” Carter directs delegates in “mixer” games at evening recreation sessions.

The camp staff posed Saturday morning after final sessions of the week long conference.

Good food made 4-H’ers happy.

Only a week of camping seems all too short to tired but enthusiastic 4-H’ers as they leave for home.

Highlighting a week of intensive leadership activities, a formal banquet and dance on Friday night, August 17, closed the second annual 4-H Leadership Conference for the western extension district. The meeting was held August 13 through 18 at the 4-H Camp at Swannanoa.

Seventy-five boys and girls representing the 15 counties of the western district met in this week-long camping program designed to improve their understanding of themselves and others and to improve their ability to work with other club members.

Miss Joan Crawford of Clay county told the delegates how she and other delegates at last year’s conference had returned to the county and cooperated with Cherokee and Graham counties to hold a leadership weekend patterned on the one held at Swannanoa.

Miss Crawford, Helen Cochran of Macon county, and Floyd McCall of Transylvania county were on scholarships granted by Sears to attend this year’s meeting as members of the camp staff.

G.L. Carter Jr., assistant state 4-H club leader, said that the program avoided emphasis on competitive sports usually associated with summer camp programs in an effort to provide the boys and girls with experiences which they could not receive in their home communities.

Out of state members of the instructional staff were Gordon Jones, 4-H recreation leader for the Indiana Extension Service at Purdue University, and Miss Emmie Nelson, National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work, Bill Miller, program coordinator for the John C. Campbell folk school, led discussions on leadership and directed craft game making.

Western District Home Agent Miss Mary Harris said that the entire instructional staff, which included many of the district’s farm and home agents as well as personnel from North Carolina State College, was one of the most outstanding groups of workers ever to work with the boys and girls of the western district.

W.B. Collins, western district farm agent, stated that each of the 15 counties was represented by one or more delegates, and one from the Cherokee reservation. Counties represented were: Avery, Buncombe, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, Mitchell, Swain, Transylvania, Watauga, and Yancey.

Stores Selling Fake Vinegar, Warns N.C. Department of Agriculture, 1914

Imagine it’s 1914 and all the pickles you put up have failed.  You know you followed the directions carefully. What could it be? Well, it may be that your local store sold you adulterated vinegar! According to a 1914 Bulletin of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, the sale of adulterated vinegar was a problem. Here’s a section from that bulletin.

Under both the State and National Food Laws vinegar is a product of standard strength made from the juice of apples—that is vinegar, and nothing else is vinegar, and nothing else can be legally sold simply as vinegar. A 4 per cent solution of acetic acid in water, colored with caramel, is not vinegar and cannot be legally sold as such. It has the acid strength of vinegar, to be sure, but instead of having the delightful flavor and odor so desirable in vinegar, it has nothing but a pungent, stinging odor and taste. So-called spirit vinegar is practically nothing but acetic acid in water, colored with caramel. Still, manufacturers and dealers want to sell it as vinegar. They also want to mix it in all proportions from 20 to 90 per cent with vinegar and sell this mixture as vinegar.

The most frequent violation of the food law to-day is the sale of these so-called vinegars as vinegar by the retail dealers of the State. If the manufacturers or jobbers were to ship these products, labeled vinegar, from one State into another they would be prosecuted under the National law.

These products, shipped in barrels, are not often labeled or branded vinegar, but are labeled what they are, though many dealers in selling them at retail sell them as vinegar. When a sample of so-called vinegar is bought by an inspector as vinegar, and the dealer is notified that he has violated the food law in the sale of a product as vinegar which was not vinegar, he almost invariably replies that the thought it was vinegar. Had he looked at the label, he would have seen that it was not vinegar.

During the year 311 samples of vinegar and so-called vinegar have been purchased from the dealers of the State and examined. The results of the examination of these samples are tabulated below. [If you want to see the table, you can see the original publication at D.H. Hill Library, N.C. State University, Raleigh.]

Dealers are cautioned that the sale of so-called vinegar or adulterated vinegar as vinegar will be prosecuted.