Author Talk and Book Signing

North Carolina's own Rufus L. Edmisten will be at the Central Library on Thursday, Jan. 16 at 3:30 p.m. to discuss his memoir on state politics, his experience of the Watergate hearings, and public life.  Copies of "That's Rufus: A Memoir of Tar Heel Politics, Watergate and Public Life" will be available for purchase from…

"Friday Calls"…ignored by local media…

E. Vernon F. Glenn at an autograph party in Jacksonville, FL for his first novel, "Friday Calls". He is a member of the local Glenn family, of Quality Oil Company fame, but the "E. Vernon F." part makes him the namesake of E. Vernon Ferrell, for many years the head of Ferrell Realty and certainly…

Cruising Stratford, the early years…1940s – 1960s

For larger images, on Mac, control-click-view image; on Windows, right click-view image. Most of the pictures in this post are original monochromes. Since I have been experimenting with colorization, I decided to colorize most of them using various algorithms. The monochrome originals are safely stored in their original format. Myrtle Beach, Ninth Avenue at Ocean…

A century of hotels…Frances to Hampton…

To see images at full size where available, do this: On a Mac, control click on the image, then select "View image". In Windows, right click on the image, then select "View Image" To return to the blog post, click the back button In the beginning Men working The home stretch OpenPhotos by Fam Brownlee…

Winston-Salem’s Sweetheart: Mary Pickford

As always, click images for full size   https://youtu.be/SNTcUNZM66A This year’s River Run Film Festival takes as its focus the centennial of United Artists, founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., D.H. Griffith and Mary Pickford. UA was not a Hollywood studio, but a distribution channel that would serve many independent film makers…

Goody’s goodies in the Camel City…

As always, click images for larger size where available... https://youtu.be/NzPqiLXpHDY North Carolina has always been an important producer and consumer of patent medicines. It is the birthplace of the three best known headache relief powders. All three had pretty much the same basic ingredients, powdered aspirin, salycylamide and caffeine. For instance, the original B.C. formula…

History of Piedmont Airlines Exhibit at Central Library

This month the Piedmont Aviation Historical Society has curated an exhibit of their archives in the North Carolina Collection at the Central Library. The exhibit will run from January through April. Piedmont Aviation Historical Society Banner Piedmont Airlines began in February 1948 with a flight from Wilmington to Cincinnati on a Douglas DC-3 with founder…