Mount Airy, North Carolina is known for a lot of things. Foremost in my mind, it’s been the site of a massive granite quarry for over 160 years. A quarry that is actually the largest open-faced granite quarry on the planet, even being visible from space. Stone from there has found its way into cities, memorials, and structures all over the world. It also gained Mount Airy the nickname “Granite City”. Griffith in 1955. More recently, Mount Airy has embraced its legacy as the probable inspiration for the town of Mayberry as seen in The Andy Griffith Show. Mount Airy’s most famous son might not h ..read more

On the north end of the little community of Osbornville in Wilkes county, between Somers Road and Dugger Creek stands a modest little mountain. Despite rising to only 1400 feet above sea level, it appears on even the oldest maps of the area I can find. For untold years it has remained a tree covered sentinel, watching over the area and it’s peoples. There’s no telling the stories it’s seen or participated in during that life, but recently I have discovered a few I that want to share with you. Before white people took hold of the land around what is now called Hunting Creek, the native people ..read more

saving the invisible For my first post of 2024, I want to draw attention to another NC blogger and specifically her quest to save an important historic property in North Carolina ..read more

This “colored school” served as an elementary and high school for decades in the community where it is located. I’ve found a little bit of information that gives us an idea what it would have been like in 1938 when the original wooden building was in use. A report commissioned by the state tells us attendance was a little more than 30 students of high school age with one dedicated high school teacher. We even have his schedule listed in this report. in 1938 that single high school teacher had one room for his students and the 4 other available were for elementary students. Numbers for the el ..read more

I have almost no information about this old bridge site. Aerial photos reveal it was already out of use as early as 1955, and the size of it tends to support that. It was likely a one lane bridge and crossed Beaver Creek on NC Highway 64 between the South Yadkin River and the little community of Center. What remains is the substructure consisting of concrete abutments on both sides of the creek. If there was ever a pier in between, any trace of it seems to have vanished. It could be that what might have been there was wooden rather than concrete like the abutments are and it simply rotted away ..read more

Enoch Newton “Newt” Gwyn was born in 1836 to Richard and Elizabeth (Hunt) Gwyn in Elkin, North Carolina. He was one of six other children born into that family. Enoch’s father Richard was a well-to-do citizen of Elkin and had some stake in the textiles manufacturing that went on there. These would probably later become what was known as Chatham manufacturing, a worldwide seller of woolen blankets and eventually other items such as towels, clothing, and even items for the government during both world wars. Richard also represented Surry county in the state legislature for a time. It was said o ..read more

The area we are exploring today was never much of a community and never really well populated. Today there are probably even fewer people. But at one time, for an unknown period of time, there was a church here. When it started, when it ended, and when it was destroyed or removed is not clear. But based on the handful of mentions of it I could find, I would guess it was in use before the Civil War and abandoned sometime after 1900. It may have been a Methodist church. Beyond that, there are no records. No membership rolls, rarely any mentions in the newspapers, and not even a building foundat ..read more

An update to the investigation into whether a man who died in Davie county might be one of Napoleon’s commanders. Previously I had written about the exhumation of the mysterious teacher by a documentary crew from France who hoped to confirm or refute the old local tale. Well, the results are in. Sort of. Writing for the Davie County Enterprise Record, Marcia Phillips provides an update on what exactly they found. You can read about it here. In short, the mystery remains ..read more

The picture at the top of this page is of a house which no longer exists. Likely built in the early 1800s, it stood within the tip of a right angle created by what we today call Somers and Iredell Line roads in Hamptonville, NC. The house either fell or was demolished sometime after the 1980s, and today another home sits in roughly the same place, but stories about it persist. W.A. “Uncle Billy” Myers later in life. William Almon Myers was born in 1833 to Shadrack and Mary (Windsor) Myers. With siblings numbering almost in the double digits, William was probably well acquainted with the human ..read more

When looking at historical figures, it’s easy to paint with a broad brush trying to understand motives and beliefs. This unfortunately is how we tend to label even modern people, especially in regard to politics. But a real man is complex, with intentions and convictions that aren’t always easy to pin down or to neatly grouped into categories based on our current understanding of things. I believe Dr. Solomon Angle was such a man. Myer Angle, (Findagrave) Born to Myer and Catharine (Pallen) Angle in 1823, he was the first of several children the couple would have. His father Myer Angle was an ..read more