Morganton, North Carolina
Morganton is a city in and the county seat of Burke County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 16,918 at the 2010 census. Morganton is one of the principal cities in the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. A site five miles north of here has been identified as the Mississippian culture chiefdom of Joara, occupied from 1400AD to 1600AD; this was the site of Fort San Juan, built in 1567 by a Spanish expedition as the first European settlement in the interior of North America, 40 years before the English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. The oldest-known European inland settlement in the United States of Fort San Juan has been identified at Joara, a former Mississippian culture chiefdom located about five miles north of present-day Morganton. In 1567 a Spanish expedition built the fort there, while seeking to establish an interior route to Mexican silver mines; this was more than 40 years before the English settled Jamestown, their first permanent settlement in North America.
The Spanish left a 31-man garrison that occupied the fort for 18 months before being overcome in a Mississippian attack. Five other Spanish forts in the larger interior region were destroyed about that time. Only one soldier survived; the fort and Indian settlement have been under professional excavation since the early 21st century, with findings published since 2004. Europeans associated with the British colonies did not try to settle this far west for nearly 200 years, organizing Burke County in 1777. Today Joara is identified as a significant archaeological and historic site near the Watersee River in the Upper Catawba Valley. Construction of its mounds is believed to have been started by the people of the Mississippian culture by AD 1000, they occupied the site continuously from 1400AD to 1600AD. Based on additional archeological excavations at the "Berry Site" that revealed the remains of a defensive moat constructed in European style, researchers in 2013 concluded that this was the site of Fort San Juan and Joara.
Earlier evidence found in the area included "military artifacts and burned remains of Spanish-built huts." Public welfare facilities, such as the North Carolina School for the Deaf: Main Building and Western North Carolina Insane Asylum, were first authorized by the state legislature in the late 19th century after the American Civil War. In the early 20th century, textile mills were developed in the Piedmont as industry left union-dominated areas of the Northeast United States. During the century, these industrial jobs moved offshore. In the late 20th century and Burke County, still rural and with big poultry farms, became locations for industrial-scale poultry processing plants; these jobs attracted many new immigrants to the state from Central America, leading to an increase in Latino population in this area. During the 1990s, Guatemalan-born workers in Morganton worked to organize a union at the Case Farms poultry plant but were unsuccessful. Labor and factory work have changed in the "Nuevo" South, where many Latino immigrants work in low paid industrial jobs.
They are competing with globalization in some industries. At the state level, North Carolina is working to encourage immigrant communities and their contributions. On January 31, 2006, an explosion occurred at Synthron Inc. a paint additive chemical manufacturer's plant in Morganton. Workers at Synthron reported hearing a loud hiss minutes before the explosion. Most were able to escape the building before the blast, but some who were outside were thrown as far as 20 feet; the explosion was felt as far away as 50 miles. On the day of the explosion, operations appeared normal until after the steam was turned off and the polymer initiating solution was pumped into the reactor; the operator in charge noted that the reaction did not proceed as vigorously as expected, but the solvent evaporated and the condensed solvent flow returning to the reactor appeared within normal range. A few minutes the operator heard a loud hissing and saw vapor venting from the reactor manway; the irritating vapor forced him out of the building.
Three other employees left the building because of the vapors. The operator reentered the building wearing a respirator and started emergency cooling water flow to the reactor; the building exploded less than 30 seconds. The US Chemical Safety Board stated that the solvent vapor leaked from the overheated and over-pressurised process reactor, forming a flammable vapour cloud inside the building that ignited. A total of 14 people were injured in the blast, of whom one man died. In addition, at least 300 fish died due to chemicals leaking into a creek behind the Synthron plant which leads into the Catawba River. Properties recognized for their historic significance date to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the period of more dense development, they include public facilities, such as the state school for the deaf, numerous private homes and former business facilities, as well as several historic districts. They reflect the development of the area by yeoman farmers, cotton planters who had plantations, as well as the development of cotton and textile mills, followed by other industries.
They include the Avery Avenue Historic District, Avery Avenue School, Alphonse Calhoun Avery House, Broughton Hospital Historic District, Burke County Courthouse, Creekside, U. S. B. Dale's Market, Dunavant Cotton Manufacturing Company, Gaither House, Garrou-Morganton Full-Fashioned Hosiery Mills, Gaston Chapel, Hunting Creek Railroad Bridge, Jonesboro Historic District, John Alexander Lackey House, Magnolia Place, Morganton Downtown Historic District, Mountain V
Wateree River
The Wateree River, about 75 mi long, is a tributary of the Santee River in central South Carolina in the United States, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean. Its name recalls the now-extinct Wateree Native Americans, who lived in the area until displaced by European settlers; the Wateree River is a continuation of the Catawba River, which flows from the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. The name change occurs at the point where Wateree Creek empties into Lake Wateree, formed by Wateree Hydro Station Dam, a Duke Energy hydroelectric dam, in Kershaw County, South Carolina; the Wateree flows southward through Kershaw County and along the common boundary of Richland and Sumter counties, past the town of Camden. It joins the Congaree River to form the Santee River about 35 mi southeast of Columbia; the following is a list of crossings along the short length of the Wateree US 1/US 601 in Camden & Lugoff Railroad bridge in Camden Interstate 20 in Camden Garner's Ferry Road US 378 near Stateburg Two railroad bridges near the confluence with the Congaree River near Eastover List of South Carolina rivers Columbia Gazetteer of North America entry DeLorme.
South Carolina Atlas & Gazetteer. Yarmouth, Maine: DeLorme. ISBN 0-89933-237-4. U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Wateree River, retrieved 6 February 2006 Lewis, Kenneth E; the Carolina Backcountry Venture: Tradition and Circumstance in the Development of Camden and the Wateree Valley, 1740—1810 (University of South Carolina Press, 2017. Xviii, 436 pp
Cabarrus County, North Carolina
Cabarrus County is a county located in the south-central part of the U. S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 178,011; the county seat is Concord, incorporated in 1803. Cabarrus County is included in the NC-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Among its significant historic sites is the Reed Gold Mine, a National Historic Landmark; the first gold discovered in the United States was found here in 1799, resulting in a gold rush in the early 1800s. While some cotton plantations were established, most of the land was developed for subsistence farming. By 1860 the population consisted of about one-third enslaved African Americans, with few free people of color. Industrialization had started before the war with the introduction of textile mills to process the cotton. More mill development took place after the railroad was constructed to the town. Coleman Manufacturing Company, started in 1897, is believed to be the first cotton mill in the nation to be built and operated by African Americans.
It was owned by Warren Clay Coleman from Concord, John C. Dancy, seven partners from Wilmington, North Carolina. Investors included capitalists in other parts of the state. Textile manufacturing continued to be integral to the regional economy until the 20th century. In 2015 the Coleman-Franklin-Cannon Mill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; the county was formed on December 1792 from Mecklenburg County. Located in the Piedmont, it was named after Stephen Cabarrus of Chowan County, speaker of the North Carolina House of Commons. Catawba Indians were the primary inhabitants of the area until beginning about 1750, the county was settled by immigrants: Germans on the eastern side and Scotch-Irish in the western area of the county; when it came time to choose a location for the county seat and county government, each ethnic group wanted the county seat located close to their populations and could not reach agreement on a site. Stephen Cabarrus wrote to the citizens pleading with them to come together in peace to choose a location for their county seat.
A central area of the county was chosen in 1796 and aptly named Concord, a derivative of two French words "with" and "peace." Representative Paul Barringer introduced a bill into the state legislature to incorporate Concord. The town of Concord was begun on land owned by wife Jane Morrison Huie; the first substantiated gold find in America was in 1799 by young Conrad Reed while playing in Little Meadow Creek, located on the Reed farm in southeastern Cabarrus County. According to research, Conrad's find was a gold chunk the size of a shoe and weighing 17 pounds, his father John Reed took the nugget into Concord to a silversmith, who informed Reed that the rock did not have any value. The elder Reed returned home with it, holding it for three years until a trip in 1802 to Fayetteville, where he sold the "nugget" to a jeweler for $3.50. Over time John Reed learned. Reed returned to Fayetteville insisting on more just compensation; this discovery and news of the sale spurred the beginning of gold mining in the area.
John Reed, or Johannes Rieth as he is known in records of the Staatsarchiv at Marburg, was one of thousands of Hessian soldiers brought over by British troops to fight against rebellious colonists in the American Revolution. Reed deserted, as did many other Hessians, he traveled from Georgia to North Carolina, where he settled in an ethnic German community sometime around 1787 and began farming. Reed first developed placer mining on his property underground mining, became wealthy from the gold, his facility became known as Reed's Gold Mine. Large amounts of gold were being discovered at the Reed Gold Mine and in other mines in the United States. In order for the government to retain control of the production of currency and keep a stabilized economic structure, President Andrew Jackson signed into legislation the authorization to create branches of the US Mint; the Charlotte Mint was built to handle the gold coming from the rich gold veins of North Carolina, including Reed's. The Reed Gold Mine was designated a National Historic Landmark, as it was the first gold mine in the country.
Gold was mined in North Carolina into the early 20th century. Today visitors at the site can explore some of the mine's reconstructed tunnels. Located in the Piedmont region, the county was developed for subsistence farming, but did have some cotton plantations. By 1860 the population was about one-third enslaved African Americans, with few free people of color; the first cotton mill was constructed as early as 1839. More mill development took place after the American Civil War. Among the owners of new mills in the area were men of the rising black middle-class of Wilmington, North Carolina, such as John C. Dancy, others. Warren Clay Coleman, a Concord African-American businessman, joined them in organizing Coleman Manufacturing Company in 1897, on a site about two miles from Concord, they built and operated what is believed to have been the first cotton mill in the nation to be owned by blacks. They wanted to promote economic security for people of color. Richard B. Fitzgerald was its first president.
While blacks had been hired for tobacco manufacturing, they were excluded from white-owned textile mills. The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, with white attacks on blacks, their homes and businesses, destroyed much of what the people had built there since the war. In 1900 Da
Mike Easley
Michael Francis Easley is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 72nd governor of the U. S. state of North Carolina from January 2001 to January 2009. He is the only Governor of North Carolina to have been convicted of a felony, he is member of the North Carolina Democratic Party. Easley was North Carolina's second Catholic governor. Thomas Burke was the first, though Easley is the first elected by popular vote. Easley was raised a Roman Catholic in otherwise overwhelmingly Protestant Nash County, North Carolina, his father, Alexander Easley, owned one of the two big tobacco warehouses in the area. Easley earned a degree with honors in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1972. While at UNC he was a member of Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity, he attended the North Carolina Central University School of Law, earning his J. D. degree, with honors, in 1976. Easley is married to Mary Easley, who worked in the Provost's Office at North Carolina State University until June 8, 2009.
She is a former law professor at North Carolina Central University and worked for ten years as a prosecutor. The two have one son, Michael Easley, Jr. Easley was elected District Attorney, one of the youngest in the state, in 1982. A Democrat, Easley ran unsuccessfully in that party's 1990 primary for the U. S. Senate. Easley was elected North Carolina Attorney General in 1992, he won reelection in 1996. In the 1996 election for attorney general, Easley garnered 59.07% of the vote, compared with opponent Robert H. Edmonds, Jr.'s 40.93% of votes. This represented a margin of victory of 446,169 votes. In 2000, Easley ran to succeed the term-limited Hunt as Governor of North Carolina, he defeated incumbent Lieutenant Governor Dennis A. Wicker in the Democratic primary, successfully challenged Republican Richard Vinroot, former mayor of Charlotte, in the general election. Easley was reelected in 2004, running against New Hanover County state senator Patrick J. Ballantine. In the closing weeks of the 2000 gubernatorial race, actor Andy Griffith filmed an ad endorsing Easley, which some observers believe led to Easley's victory, called the "Mayberry Miracle".
Education reform was a centerpiece of Easley's tenure as governor, to such an extent that in 2008, Easley received the inaugural "America's Greatest Education Governor" award from the National Education Association. The award was created to showcase "public officials who have demonstrated exemplary achievements and accomplishments in advancing public education". Easley was commended by the NEA for his focus on improving teacher working conditions and for affording teachers a "seat at the table" in discussions surrounding the implementation of education reforms in the state. One of Easley's major programs was More at Four, an innovative academic pre-kindergarten for at-risk children. More at Four has received extensive praise from groups such as the National Education Association. Another signature program of Easley's was the award-winning "Learn and Earn" initiative, which enabled North Carolina high school students to earn college credit by taking online courses at no cost to them or to their families.
The "Learn and Earn" program received the Innovations in American Government Award from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Presenting the award, Harvard noted that in "2006-2007, rates of grade promotion and graduation for Learn and Earn participants were higher than the statewide average, with nearly half the Learn and Earn high schools seeing 100 percent promotion rates". Harvard observed that these numbers have not "been skewed by "creaming", counting of only high scoring children; the program purposely targets kids at risk, those for whom English is a second language and those who would be first-generation college students." Easley initiated a program to enable North Carolina students to attain a debt-free undergraduate education by receiving EARN Grants of up to $8,000 over two years. In 2007 Easley wrote and published a children's book, Look Out, Here I Come! the proceeds of which fund a North Carolina education charity. His tenure faced budget shortfalls, tough economic times, natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.
Easley received mixed reviews on his handling of fiscal problems in the state. His supporters claimed many of the budget shortfall situations were created before he took office, during the Hunt administration, while his detractors criticized his support of raising sales taxes multiple times to cover the cost of new state programs. During his administration, Easley confronted the state legislature on numerous occasions. Easley is the first North Carolina governor to use the power of veto, which voters gave the governor's office in 1996. First, in November 2002, Easley vetoed legislation related to unqualified appointments to various boards and commissions. In June 2003, he vetoed a bill that stripped the State Board of Education of its authority to set teacher standards. In August 2003, he vetoed HB 917 which raised fees charged by finance companies. In July 2004, he vetoed HB 429 which would have required local governments to make cash payments to billboard owners of up to five times the annual revenue generated by the billboard upon its removal.
In March 2005, he vetoed SB 130 which would have conveyed state property. In September 2005, he vetoed HB 706 which would have affected teacher standards. In August 2007 he vetoed HB 1761, a controversial financial incentives bill which would have awarded up to 40 million dollars to companies within the state. Easley has used his veto power a total of nine times as of 2008, his ninth veto was the first to be overridden by the legislature in North Carolina his
Hymenocallis coronaria
Hymenocallis coronaria known as the Cahaba lily, shoal lily, or shoals spider-lily, is an aquatic, perennial flowering plant species of the genus Hymenocallis. It is endemic to the Southeastern United States, being found only in Alabama, South Carolina and parts of North Carolina. Within Alabama, it is known as the Cahaba lily. Hymenocallis coronaria requires a swift, water current and direct sunlight to flourish; the plant grows to about 3 feet tall and develops from a bulb. It blooms from early May to late June; each fragrant flower blossom opens last for one day. They are visited and pollinated by Paratrea plebeja known as the plebeian sphinx moth, Battus philenor, the pipevine swallowtail butterfly; the plant was first observed in 1783 by William Bartram and described as the "odoriferous Pancratium fluitans which alone possesses the little rocky islets". He saw it growing in the Savannah River near Georgia. Hymenocallis coronaria is under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act, due to entire populations being wiped out by dam construction.
There are only 50 extant populations of Hymenocallis coronaria left, all in the states of Alabama and South Carolina. The three largest remaining populations are located in the Cahaba River in Alabama, the Catawba River in South Carolina, in the Flint River in Georgia; the Cahaba River has four separate populations, with three within the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge and one in Buck Creek). Significant populations remain in the Savannah River basin, with three in the main channel and one each in the tributaries of Stevens Creek in South Carolina and the Broad River in Georgia; the Cahaba River Society Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge Cahaba River Wildlife Management Area
Appalachian Regional Commission
The Appalachian Regional Commission is a United States federal-state partnership that works with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life. Congress established ARC to bring the region into socioeconomic parity with the rest of the nation; the Appalachian Region, as defined by Congress, includes all of West Virginia and portions of 12 other states: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia. ARC serves 420 counties that encompass 205,000 square miles, with a population of more than 25 million people; the Appalachian Regional Commission has 14 members: the governors of the 13 Appalachian states and a federal co-chair, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. A professional staff carries out the work of the Commission; the current Federal Co-Chair is Tim Thomas. Thomas was appointed by President Donald Trump and sworn in on April 3, 2018; the 2019 States' Co-Chair is North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.
Grassroots participation is provided through 73 local development districts, which are multi-county organizations with boards made up of elected officials, business people, other local leaders. The ARC is a planning, research and funding organization. All of ARC's activities must advance at least one of the five strategic investment goals articulated in its 2016–2020 strategic plan adopted in November 2015: creating economic opportunities, developing a ready workforce, investing in critical infrastructure, including the Appalachian Development Highway System, leveraging natural and cultural assets, bolstering leadership and community capacity; the bulk of ARC funds, which come from a federal appropriation, support grant making across a broad range of categories. All grants require performance measures. A regional research and evaluation program helps inform the agency's work. ARC emphasizes the leveraging of private-sector investments, relies on a broad network of public and private partnerships, focuses on innovative, regional strategies to help communities help themselves.
ARC targets its resources to the areas of greatest need, with at least half of its grants going to projects that benefit economically distressed areas and counties. ARC's FY 2016 appropriation included $50 million in funding through the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization Initiative; this multi-agency initiative, launched in 2015, targets federal resources to help diversify economies in communities and regions that have been affected by job losses in coal mining, coal power plant operations, coal-related supply chain industries due to the changing economics of America's energy production. The Trump Administration's proposed budget for FY 2018 eliminates funding for the ARC. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has assured constituents no funding would be cut from the ARC; as mandated by Congress, ARC helps coordinate federal and local initiatives to spur economic development in Appalachia. Each year Congress appropriates funds; the Appalachian governors submit to ARC their state spending plans for the year, which include lists of projects they recommend for funding.
The spending plans are reviewed and approved at a meeting of all the governors and the federal co-chair. The next step is approval of individual projects by the ARC federal co-chair. After the states submit project applications to ARC, each project is reviewed by ARC program analysts; the process is completed when the federal co-chair formally approves it. ARC is designed as a federal-state partnership that employs a flexible "bottom up" approach, enabling local communities to tailor support to their individual needs. ARC relies on local regional planning agencies to develop effective strategies for local economic development. ARC has made investments in such essentials of comprehensive economic development as a safe and efficient highway system. Since its creation, ARC has helped cut the number of high-poverty counties in Appalachia from 295 in 1960 to 91 today, reduce the infant mortality rate by two-thirds, double the percentage of high school graduates. Over the past five years, ARC programs have helped create or retain over 101,000 jobs in Appalachia through projects that include entrepreneurship and training, health care, telecommunications, business development, basic infrastructure.
Grants during that period have leveraged $2.7 billion in private investments. ARC commissioned a report on diseases of despair, which found that deaths due to drug overdose and alcoholic liver disease were higher than average in the parts of Appalachia under the most economic stress. Beginning in about 1960, the Council of Appalachian Governors, a group of the ten governors of the Appalachian states of Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, united to seek federal government assistance for the mountainous portions of their states, which lagged behind the rest of the United States in income, health care, transportation. During the 1960 Presidential campaign, candidate John F. Kennedy met with the governors to hear their concerns and observed living conditions in West Virginia that convinced him of the need for federal assistance to address the region's problems. Unrest in the coal industry with movements like the Roving Pickets illustrated the need for f
