In December 1969, the city of Raleigh and Wake County made the big switch to a centralized telephone system, which put the switchboard operator out of business.

The unified "centrex" system made all city and county offices a direct call, creating 600-700 new phone numbers, all with the 755 prefix. It also allowed the police, sheriff and fire departments to establish one central emergency phone number, and a "proposal to shorten the emergency number to just three digits, such as 911" was under study.

In October 1937, appliance dealers gathered at the Sir Walter Hotel for a demonstration of the new automatic home washing machine, which was about to go on the market in the Carolinas.

"The new washer, a product of Bendix Home appliances, Inc. ... automatically soaks, washes, rinses and damp dries clothes. It has a capacity of nine pounds of wash."

And in 1928, the government was studying the impact a America's new habit of daily bathing.

One of America's ancient traditions -- the Saturday Night Bath -- is being relegated to the archives of memory and in this progress from sanitation of the past in developing an important contribution of prosperity.

Whether the belief that the weekly bath is vanishing for more frequent use of soap and water is based upon statistics of the Census Bureau, or the increasing purchases of toilet articles isn't disclosed ... Department officials are of the firm opinion that the tradition "Saturday Nighter" is doomed. -- The Raleigh Times 7/3/1928
 

1977 N&O File photo by Jim Strickland

In the summer of 1977, the Raleigh Jaycees launched the NC Beach Music Convention on a 160-acre farm near Lake Wheeler. Original crowd estimates were between 11,000 and 18,000. At one point, the Jaycees were calling it the second largest Jaycee project in the world (after the Greensboro Jaycees' GGO tournament), having drawn more than 20,000 people and clearing $45,000.

The Woodstock-era concert, featuring the Drifters, Showmen and Tams, was not without its controversies.

The concert tied up traffic on Penny Road and other nearby roads for hours, prompting complaints from residents of a nearby mobile home park.

[...]

Residents of Arrowhead Hills mobile home park, which is adjacent to the farm, said today they are considering petitioning the Wake Planning board to bar any future concerts near their homes.

George Hunter, who owns a grocery store on Penny Road where most of his neighbors shop, said today about 100 residents had complained to him about the concert. "Nobody I talked to who lives around here is happy about it," he said today. "I really don't care one way or the other."

[...]

One resident, Mrs. David Britt, said today that her husband sat in their yard until 11 p.m. Saturday to make sure festival-goers didn't trespass on their property or block their driveway.

"We're good Christians and don't go for this sort of thing," she said. "People were parking all up and down this road and it was a big mess. Most people in this neighborhood sat up half the night."

[...]

The outdoor bash, which began at noon Saturday and ran until midnight was marred by the death of David Thomas Hight, 30, former Warrenton resident who was living with a friend in North Raleigh. A sheriff's deputy said Hight had crawled under a 2-1/2-ton Coca Cola truck and apparently fell asleep. When the driver moved the truck, Hight was run over. He died of head injuries at Wake Medical Center.

Rescue unit personnel said today there were no other serious injuries. Several people were treated for heat exhaustion, minor cuts and bruises and dust inhalation. ... No one was arrested for drug abuse, according to the Wake Sheriff's Department.

"We had mostly beer and liquor drinkers ... people in the 18 to 40 age group who like to have a good time," [according to Jaycee organizer John Parrish]. --The Raleigh Times 8/29/1977

The second annual concert moved to Carter Stadium, a larger venue with better parking. Ticket prices, which had been $5.50 in advance and $7.50 at the gate, went up to $7 and $9.

Crowds that second year were not quite 10,000, but the concert was considered a success. 

"It's a whole lot better this year, said Paula Vereatt, 21, of Wilson. "Last year the crowd was older and not so nice."

"The location is beautiful, and they are letting us drink here, which is surprising. It's good that they're just letting us be," said Greg Zaccari, 29, also of Wilson.

Police on the scene agreed that the crowd was easier to handle this time.

1978 N&O file photo by Jim Erickson

"They really just want to have a good time," said one highway patrolman.

But some of the music fans preferred last year's festival.

Paulette Pagan, 32, of Rocky Mount, said the lake was a nicer location and that Carter Stadium was too "formal and too confining."

Mike Sorenson, also of Rocky Mount, preferred last year's festival, too. "There just aren't enough crazy people," he said.

What wasn't in dispute was the fans' love for beach music.

"The reason we're here," said Doug Tamarack, 21, of Wilson, "is we hate disco." --The Raleigh Times 8/28/1978

On the back page of the August 15, 1978 edition of The RaleighTimes is this ad for the new car telephones.

Facing more days of near-triple-digit temperatures causes us to look back at the hot summers in our memory.

In 1990, N&O columnist Dennis Rogers reminded us how we dealt with summer in the days before air conditioning.

There was a time when not everyone had air conditioning. As late as 1948, when air conditioning really began to take off, only 74,000 air conditioners were sold. The rest of us sweated and didn't think about it. It was summer and it was supposed to be hot.

We filled washtubs with cool water and played in them. We had water hose fights. Ceilings were high and airy. We had awnings. We wore more summery clothes, including boaters and seersucker suits for men, and women did carry parasols. We surrendered to summer. -- The News & Observer 8/9/1990

In later columns, Dennis praised summer suppers "sliced tomatoes, deviled eggs and potato salad, which is all you should eat in August, anyway" and warned against the deadly qualities of that summer staple, mayonnaise.

It will be the Duke's brand, for which native Southerners pause each summer to pay homage to Mrs. Eugenia Duke of Greenville, S.C. It was she who first whipped up the mayo of the mill towns. And it's kosher.

The only reason native Southerners aren't dropping like flies by Mother's Day is that we apparently develop antibodies to protect us from summer's mayonnaise mayhem. It is the same thing you find Up Nawth when fans take off their shirts at Green Bay football games in January. There, the secret is bratwurst. Or maybe beer. -- The News & Observer 6/8/2005

A summer supper shared by friends and family at the Braswell Plantation near Rocky Mount, September 1944. Photo courtesy of the NC State Archives.

Pullen Park, claimed by the city of Raleigh to be the first public park in North Carolina, has a rich history. It was founded in 1887 by Richard Stanhope Pullen. In 1888, Wiley A. Howell was named park keeper, and together Pullen and Howell began to develop the park.

In addition to the familiar carousel and train, the park also featured the city's first swimming pool (built in 1891, of wood and replaced later with WPA money) and a small zoo housing bears, alligators and monkeys.
"In Pullen Park” in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

The large trees, some as old as the park itself are the pride of the city. But many of those trees were threatened one night 100 years ago when fire broke out in the park.

Mr. W.A. Howell, keeper of Pullen Park, told a News and Observer reporter yesterday about the fire in the park before day yesterday morning. The fire was reported in yesterday morning's News and Observer, but it was necessarily meager of details, as forms of the paper were on the press when the alarm was turned in.

In addition to the destruction of the house and its contents, a great deal of damage was done to the trees surrounding the house. The barn near by also caught fire, but a hose wagon arrived in time and the barn was saved.  -- The News & Observer 7/28/1911

By the time Isabella Cannon became the first female mayor of Raleigh at age 73, she had already had quite a bit of adventure in her life.

Born in Scotland, she came to the United States in 1916 at age 12 on a British steamship being "chased by a German submarine." As a young wife, she lived in Liberia and Baghdad, following her husband's career in the diplomatic service. She lived for a short time in Raleigh before moving to Washington DC. Her husband worked several more years overseas. His health began to deteriorate, and he died soon after their return to North Carolina.

She became known as a neighborhood activist and pretty soon, she found herself being talked into running for mayor against incumbent Jyles Coggins.

In a 1993 interview with the Southern Oral History program, she recalled the excitement of that 1977 campaign.

I was unknown to the biggest segment of the population, certainly to the wealthy segment, and to the big business and developers. I was known to ordinary people. I had no money, I had no organization, but I said, "Ok, let's go for it." I threw myself into it, fully expecting to win. I was always surprised when someone would say to me, "Aren't you surprised that you won?" I replied, "I went in there to win—I didn't go in to lose."

It was a people's movement and was exciting. I made speeches all over, anywhere. I was going from eight o'clock in the morning to midnight making speeches. I went anywhere and everywhere, and I had fun doing it.  ... I ran as "The little old lady in tennis shoes" for a special reason. I live near NC State University and near Fred Olds School. At that time, it was the most derogatory thing you could say about anybody, "Oh, she dresses like a little old lady in tennis shoes," or "She thinks like a little old lady in tennis shoes." It made me angry because I saw all these young people walking by my door and what did they have on their feet? Sneakers, tennis shoes. It is no longer a derogatory comment, and perhaps I helped to change it.

If Mrs. Cannon had been so sure she would win the election, perhaps she was the only one.

Mr. Coggins really suffered by having a female run as his opponent. He was shocked. I had filed one hour before the deadline, and no one had thought that there was going to be a competition or that anybody else was going to file. He thought he was going to breeze in without any difficulty. ... It was total shock to the big business people and the developers. My campaign had been a joke to them, and I think the idea of "the little old lady in tennis shoes" perhaps added to them thinking of me as a joke. The business community had not taken me seriously. And Mr. Coggins himself really did not think I was going to win. He never conceded my election, never once admitted that I had won.

Immediately following the election that night, there was an explosion of media. I had telephone calls from Scotland, from the newspapers there, and from all over the United States. It was featured in newspapers from Tehran to Tokyo. The Stars and Stripes featured it in Japan. Reuters, the international news agency, picked it up, and it went all over the world since I had lived in Africa and The Middle East. I had fan clubs in Germany. There were people who wrote me from Australia, from Canada, from Korea. It was a real media explosion. Not only that, but in the United States ... Every major newspaper all over the United States featured me. Seventy-two major newspapers and magazines from all over the world, sixteen major magazines.

Being the first female mayor, and a tiny lady at that, brought its own special problems. The city council met behind a large, imposing table. The mayor's chair either sat so high that her feet didn't touch the floor, or if the chair were lowered to reach the floor, she couldn't be seen over the table.

The job brought other challenges, and there were clashes with a city council sympathetic to business and development interests. They did, however establish the first-ever comprehensive plan for the Capital City to help guide Raleigh's growth and make steps toward cooperating with the county on growth plans.

Her time as mayor lasted only two years. She was defeated in 1979 by fellow councilman Smedes York.

Unlike Coggins, Smedes York didn't underestimate Cannon. He treated her gently, outspent her 3-to-1 and beat her, 52 percent to 46 percent.

"She believed in the things she advocated, very strongly, " York said Thursday. "She didn't pick an issue just to get elected. She was an active neighborhood supporter before she was elected mayor, while she was mayor and after she was mayor. Certainly, in many respects, she could be a little feisty. But she was a very excellent speaker and very energetic and very intelligent. She is a very easy person to admire."  -- The News & Observer 2/15/2002

Isabella Cannon, at barely 5 feet, lost her re-election bid to the 6'4 Smedes York
 

Seaside amusements have changed over the years. In the days before cable television and video games, Bingo was a staple of the beach year round.

Columnist Jack Aulis described its popularity in 1974.

No place seems quite as deserted in winter as the arcade area of Carolina Beach. The food and drink stands, the thrill houses, the arcades filled with coin-operated games, the shops -- almost everything is closed.

It was Jim's week to be open. The beach has five Bingo parlors in summer. In winter, four of them keep the game going, operating one wee at a time, in rotation. -- The News & Observer 1/28/1974

N&O staff writer Martha Quillin returned to Carolina Beach nearly a quarter century  later to find that Bingo had lost some of its appeal with boarwalk visitors.

For more than five decades, Lois Walton's family has run Carolina Bingo on the boardwalk of this once-booming seaside resort. Now, she wonders if its number is up.

Most of the buildings that make up downtown Carolina Beach today are of World War II vintage, built after a September 1940 fire that took out the pavilion, 24 other businesses and the wooden boardwalk that ran along the beach. Touted early on as a working man's retreat, the resort attracted vacationing factory workers from the Piedmont and servicemen from the military bases in the eastern part of the state. -- The News & Observer 1/5/1998

One of the highlights of the circus coming to town is always seeing the animals and acts unload from the train. This photo shows the spectacle of a circus parade around 1898. A note on the back of the photo says the parade is "going west down Morgan and turning S onto Fayetteville" and that the photographer was "sitting in the window of the YMCA."

A visitor to Raleigh's 1937 circus described the life the circus took on after the audience had gone home.

They missed the drama of the circus. They didn't go back of the scenes, the "backyard" to showmen, where cook shop, hospital tent, dressing tents, dining tent and animal tent formed a little city of circus people.

Freighted into Raleigh over the Southern Railroad at dawn ... from Winston-Salem, the circus city mushroomed into being , went through the paces, came down again last night and was packed for the next stop at Greensboro by 3 o'clock this morning . Twenty fleeting hours. -- The News & Observer 10/27/1937

For many years, The News and Observer ran a promotion called the Fifty-Year Club in connection with the John Robinson Circus. Readers who had memories of the circus from more than 50 years earlier could share them and then attend the circus as a guest of the newspaper. Each year the paper would report the number who had "renewed" their membership and publish the names of new members.

In 1929, W.D. Terry, State Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, became a member of the club. He had first seen the circus in 1877.

"When the show came to Raleigh in 1877, it struck a rainy season. It had been raining steadily for three days and on the day of the show it rained so hard and the wind blew with such force that part of the big tent was blown down."

Sidney Williams, of Essex, who saw the show about 1874 in Warrenton saw his first electric light when it was one of the sensational attractions of the show. R.A. Wilder, of Knightdale, who saw the show in Louisburg in 1873 remembers that one of the band wagons ran over a hog on the main street of the town during the parade. J.W. Mitchell, of Raleigh, recalls the show in the Baptist Grove in Raleigh in 1877 when the wind and rain wrecked part of the tent. E.S. Doolittle remembers the circus in Charlotte in 1877 when an elephant killed his keeper in a box car. -- The News & Observer 9/19/1929

The excitement over this summer's recovery of the anchor from Blackbeard's flagship Queen Anne's Revenge might take a back seat to the discovery of an actual buried treasure. Edward Connie, plowing on his uncle's farm near Bath in the summer of 1938, uncovered what he thought might be gold. His uncle, Dallas Jordan, carried it to a jeweler who confirmed the find.

Because of the laws at the time against hoarding gold, the Secret Service became involved. Their investigation determined that the gold was indeed "discovered" on Mr. Jordan's property, a 10-acre tract he had bought 21 years earlier for $500. Before 1883, the land had belonged to Samuel B. Fisher of Winsteadville. It then passed through the hands of three lumber companies and then on to Jordan. A flood in 1932 which nearly destroyed Jordan's home, also washed away much of the topsoil and perhaps help bring buried treasure to the surface.

The area was long rumored to be the famous pirate's stomping ground, and the site of his final battle with Lieutenant Robert Maynard, commander of the sloop "Pearl."

Lieutenant Maynard met Teach, aboard his vessel "Revenge" at Ocracoke Inlet, and after the battle sailed into Bath with Blackbeard's head on his bowsprit.

"The night before he (Blackbeard) was killed he sat up and drank 'til the morning with some of his own men and the master of the merchantman; and ... one of the men asked him in case anything should happen to him ... whether his wife knew where he had buried his money? He answered that nobody but himself and the devil knew where it was, and the longest liver should take  all." -- The News & Observer 6/26/1938

More than 200 years later, Mr. Jordan was holding what might have been some of that pirate treasure. But as it turned out, this was not the first discovery of gold in the area.

Whether he thinks there is more gold in the place or not, is his secret, but it has been learned that a relative of Jordan's wife, known as Aunt Betty Harvey, uncovered a broken ingot a quarter century ago while hoeing cotton within 300 yards of the current find, and local legend is that she sold it for $300 and then went insane. -- The News & Observer 6/25/1938.
 

Crossing state or county lines to get married is nothing new. Some little towns just "over the border" have become known as wedding destinations. But somehow, in the early part of the 20th century, Hillsborough NC (then called Hillsboro) was picking up a reputation as the place to get hitched.

In an articles headlined Hillsboro Begins To Gain Fame As Marriage Market, we learned that Hillsboro had come to rival South Carolina towns as a "marriage mart, especially for the younger set who wish to keep their wedded bliss a secret. A number of couples from adjoining counties, even including Wake and Guilford, have been coming here to have themselves bound together in matrimony. ... A number of these couples have been married at night, occasionally after officials had retired for the night." -- The Raleigh Times 7/4/1928

The article went on to note that the previous month had been a slow one with only eleven licenses issued. December had been the best month of the past twelve.