Founded in 1977, the WCHS is committed to preserving and fostering community interest in the history
Since 1977, the WCHS has been committed to bringing history alive in Watauga County. Whether through our various lecture series, our serial publications (Writings on Watauga and Watauga County Times...Past), and our books (Memories of Cove Creek High School: 1922 to 1965 and The Architectural History of Watauga County, North Carolina), the Watauga County Historical Society has worked hard to conne
ct Watauga County residents, students, and visitors with our community's rich and often surprising past. Our most recent initiative is the launch of the Watauga County Digital Project, which aims to make the complex history of Watauga County more widely known and easily accessible to the public by digitally preserving the images, documents, and artifacts of Watauga County. Through partnerships with Watauga County historical institutions, businesses, and the individual residents of Watauga County, this project will allow owners to share their historical materials with the public while retaining their original materials and the associated rights to those materials.
Please consider helping us to get the Blowing Rocket digitized.
Donations can be made here: https://www.wataugacountyhistoricalsociety.org/shop
BLOWING ROCK – The Blowing Rocket Digitization Consortium held its kickoff fundraiser at the Blowing Rock Community Library on Thursday, Oct. 5.
UPDATE ON BOONE CEMETERY TOURS:
As we announced at our annual meeting in September, we had hoped to offer Boone Cemetery nighttime tours again this year. Unfortunately, we ran into some logistical challenges and ran short on volunteers who were available to cover the 20 separate tour time slots. So, we have decided to take a break this year and will explore doing the tours again next year.
In the meantime, feel free to check out the recent packet for the Boone Historic Preservation Commission (linked below) if you'd like to learn a bit more about the cemetery and current efforts to interpret the site. We recommend starting with the August 24 memo covering the history of the cemetery (pp. 200-212) before taking a peek at the last draft version of the proposed panels (pp. 45-51), but there's a lot of other information in there. At their meeting on October 3, the HPC decided to meet once again to discuss reducing the number of panels and paring down the interpretive text; that next HPC meeting will take place on October 17. See the Town of Boone website for details.
Also, we are delighted to announce that Eric Plaag will be our December speaker for the WCHS Speaker Series, and he'll be talking about the history of the Boone Cemetery, so since you didn't get a tour this year, we hope you will come for that. Stay tuned for details about the date for this event, which will be held at the WCPL Community Room and on Facebook Live.
Did you know it's time to renew your membership to the WCHS (or perhaps join for the first time)? You can also make direct donations to Digital Watauga and the WCHS directly through our shop now! Get it done before our annual meeting on Wednesday!
PO Box 3453, Boone, NC 28607 [email protected]
We are absolutely thrilled to announce the receipt of $2,500 in grant support from the Watauga Legacy Fund, a component fund of the North Carolina Community Foundation, to help us with the purchase of a replacement scanner for our scanning operations at Digital Watauga! We hope to have the new scanner in place sometime in July. Thank you to the Watauga Legacy Fund and all of you who donated to our fundraisers over the past year to make the purchase of a new scanner possible!
Our old scanner long ago surpassed its "lifetime" scanning capability, and we have started to see signs of scanning problems that can't be fixed with re-calibration. The new scanner will allow us to have lots of fancy, crisp-looking, new scans starting this summer!
The WCHS is delighted to announce Velma Rose Combs Burnley as the December (and final 2022) inductee to the WCHS Hall of Fame.
Sai Estep December 27, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical So...
The WCHS is delighted to announce Gertrude Tolbert Folk as the November inductee to the WCHS Hall of Fame.
Jennifer Woods December 15, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historic...
The WCHS is delighted to announce October's inductee to the WCHS Hall of Fame: Alfred Thomas Adams.
Eric Plaag November 7, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical So...
We are delighted to sponsor the appearance of Randell Jones, one of the scheduled speakers for the Daniel Boone Forum taking place on October 26, 2022, at 7:00pm at the Appalachian Theatre.
Randell Jones is the award-winning author of _In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone_, _Trailing Daniel Boone_, and _The Daniel Boone Wagon Train_. For 14 years, he served as an invited member of the Road Scholars Speakers Bureau of the NC Humanities Council, speaking to audiences around the state. In 2013, the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution conferred on him its national History Award Medal for his body of work in the prior 10 years including _Before They Were Heroes at King's Mountain_. He lives in Winston-Salem where he is the creator of BecomingAmerica250.com, editor of the Personal Story Publishing Project, and host of "6-Minute Stories" Podcast. Find more at DanielBooneFootsteps.com or RandellJones.com.
You can reserve tickets (free) at the Appalachian Theatre's website: apptheatre.org.
The WCHS is delighted to announce Sandra Marie Hagler as September's inductee to the WCHS Hall of Fame.
Sai Estep September 27, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical S...
The WCHS is out with its announcement of its August inductee to the WCHS Hall of Fame: Blanford Barnard Dougherty. Read all about it below.
Eric Plaag August 26, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical Soc...
The WCHS is delighted to announce its July 2022 inductee to the WCHS Hall of Fame: Rachel Ann Rivers-Coffey.
Click the link below to learn more about her contributions to Watauga County history, literature, and culture.
Eric Plaag July 23, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical Socie...
The WCHS is proud to announce its June 2022 inductees to the WCHS Hall of Fame: The Lyons Brothers.
Leslie McDonald Lyons (1900-1957), Clarence Manleth Lyons (1903-1981), and Earl Jones Lyons (1912-1984) were important stone and brick masons during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s in Watauga County. Click the link below to learn more about their work.
Eric Plaag June 30, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical Socie...
WCHS is excited to announce its May 2022 inductee to the WCHS Hall of Fame: Constance Stallings.
May 31, 2022 Eric Plaag As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical Societ...
Congratulations to John and Faye Cooper, the April inductees to the Watauga County Historical Society Hall of Fame!
Eric Plaag April 27, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical Soci...
Thank you, friends!
Do you want to support the WCHS and Digital Watauga? Find out how below.
PO Box 3453, Boone, NC 28607 [email protected]
Congratulations to Roberta Hagler Jackson, the latest inductee to the Watauga County Historical Society Hall of Fame!
Ellie McCorkle and Sai Estep March 29, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga Coun...
We are delighted to announce the Reverend Ronda David Horton (1895-1986) as February's inductee to the Watauga County Historical Society Hall of Fame.
Additional inductees from the 2022 inaugural class will be announced each month.
Eric Plaag February 20, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical S...
We are delighted to announce Bettie Bond as the first inductee to the Watauga County Historical Society Hall of Fame.
Additional inductees from the 2022 inaugural class will be announced each month.
Eric Plaag January 31, 2022 As part of ongoing activities associated with the Boone 150 celebrations in 2022, marking the 150th anniversary of Boone’s official incorporation as a town on January 23, 1872, the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) has established the Watauga County Historical So...
We are deeply saddened to report the passing of Sarah Lynn Rives Blair Spencer. Not only was Sarah Lynn a good friend to us here at Digital Watauga and the WCHS, but her generous contribution of access rights to the Palmer Blair Collection at the beginning of the project was critically important to DW building trust with others in our community. Always a leader on the preservation of our local history, Sarah Lynn worked tirelessly with Flavel Eggers to help save the Historic Boone Collection and catalog its contents long before DW was established. We will be forever indebted to her.
I will personally miss our many fascinating conversations as well as Sarah Lynn's kindness, generosity, and savvy wit. She truly was one of a kind, and it was an honor to call her a friend. Her life was long and full, and the world is a much emptier place without her in it. Thank you and Godspeed, Sarah Lynn, and please tell Palmer how much I wish I could have known him, too. --EP
Sarah Lynn Rives Blair Spencer, age 94, of Boone, passed away Saturday, December 18, 2021 at her home. A private graveside service will be conducted at Meroney United Methodist Church in Bear Creek, NC. A memorial service will be scheduled at a later date. The family requests that in lieu of food or...
Looking for that perfect holiday gift?
Why not a copy of REMEMBERING BOONE for your loved ones?
(Coming in October 2021)
Did you miss our Speaker Series talk with Dr. Tom Whyte on "Boone Before Boone"? You can watch a recording of it right here.
https://www.facebook.com/DigitalWatauga/videos/428333052217963
BOOKS ARE HERE! Pre-orders ship on Monday!
You can order yours now. All royalties, including all net proceeds from our sales, go directly to support the Digital Watauga Project!
https://www.wataugacountyhistoricalsociety.org/shop
Did you know that you can now order copies of Remembering Boone and the Architectural History of Watauga County--and renew your membership--directly from our online store?
https://www.wataugacountyhistoricalsociety.org/shop
Donations can also be made directly through our website: https://www.wataugacountyhistoricalsociety.org/join-usdonate
PO Box 3453, Boone, NC 28607 [email protected]
Many of the folks who were at yesterday's Junaluska Community historical marker dedication have asked for a copy of the remarks read by the Boone HPC chairperson. With his permission, we have reprinted them at the link below.
June 20, 2021 Yesterday, the Boone Historic Preservation Commission, the Boone Town Council, and the Junaluska Heritage Association held a joint ceremony to commemorate the unveiling of the new Town of Boone historical marker recognizing the history of the Junaluska Community. As part of the fest
HUGE NEWS! We are delighted to announce that "Remembering Boone," a 150th anniversary book from Arcadia Publishing, will be released in January 2022, just in time for the Boone 150 birthday festivities.
You can PRE-ORDER your copy through the WCHS for $23.99 plus $4 shipping and handling using this form:https://www.wataugacountyhistoricalsociety.org/s/Book-Order-Form-WCHS-June-2021.pdf Copies that are pre-ordered in this manner before January 2022 will be autographed by the author. ALL ROYALTIES, WCHS NET PROCEEDS, AND NET PROCEEDS FROM AUTHOR SALES GO DIRECTLY TO THE SUPPORT OF DIGITAL WATAUGA, the main project of the WCHS.
This book will feature approximately 200 images from the collections in Digital Watauga, many of which are not yet online. The book is organized chronologically and tells Boone's story by examining critical periods in Boone's evolution through the images of those times.
The Town of Boone is officially considering Local Historic District designation for Downtown Boone. We here at the WCHS fully endorse the plan about as wholeheartedly as we can endorse anything. We've seen too much of our downtown history and architecture disappear. This plan will help protect it.
You can learn more about the project and offer your own view by following the links in the Town's official press release about the project, appended below.
The Town of Boone is officially considering Local Historic District designation for Downtown Boone. We here at Digital Watauga fully endorse the plan about as wholeheartedly as we can endorse anything. We've seen too much of our downtown history and architecture disappear. This plan will help protect it.
You can learn more about the project and offer your own view by following the links in the Town's official press release about the project, appended below.
Did you miss last night's excellent presentation by Dr. Susan Keefe and Roberta Jackson about the history of the Junaluska Community? If so, you can see it all right here!
(Apologies for the brief technical issue at the beginning.)
"A small business could never afford the millions of dollars it would cost to produce and run an ad on CBS tonight," Colbert said, introducing the "very real" ad on 'Late Late Show'.
The Sanborn maps collection consists of over 50,000 historical atlases, with around 32,000 of them currently available online. Click to explore the different places and discover more about the history with randomly selected historical newspaper photos from the area!
The Watauga County Historical Society has been invited to comment on the potential impact of a 180-foot Self-Support Communications Tower with an overall height of 198 feet, that is proposed for a site located on Sampson Road in the Aho vicinity. Please see the attached letter, map, and aerial views.
We encourage you to reach out to us if you are aware of any historic buildings, landscapes, archaeological sites, or other resources whose viewshed or physical components may be adversely impacted by this proposed project. You may message us through Facebook Messenger or email us at [email protected].
We were deeply saddened by the recent news that our good friend and colleague, Dr. Donald Bishop Saunders, passed away after a long illness on July 9.
Don was a great personal friend as well as a very generous supporter of the WCHS and Digital Watauga. Don not only provided a large chunk of the funds for the publication of "The Architectural History of Watauga County, North Carolina" in 2009, but he also generously rescued the WCHS from a mountain of debt through a series of significant donations in 2016 and 2017. As a tribute to Don back then, our initial scholarships to support our early Digital Watauga technicians were named in his honor. The WCHS and Digital Watauga are debt-free today in large part because of Don's generosity.
This obituary (https://www.wataugademocrat.com/watauga/dr-donald-bishop-saunders/article_2b990703-9fd6-5c84-9968-da95827b789c.html) offers an excellent snapshot of who Don was as a person, so we won't try to top that here. Suffice it to say that we will miss his quick wit, his outstanding sense of humor, and the many thoughtful conversations about how to make the world a better place. You're a good man, Don, and the world is emptier without you.
If you'd like to honor Don, in accordance with his wishes, we ask that you make a memorial donation to the Dr. Don Saunders Endowment #1717 c/o the North Carolina Community Foundation, 3737 Glenwood Avenue, Suite 460, Raleigh, NC 27612, or https://nccf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create?funit_id=17358.
It's annual renewal time, and we desperately need your help as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a cascade effect on all of our operations.
Please see the link here to renew, join for the first time, or make a donation to Digital Watauga: https://www.wataugacountyhistoricalsociety.org/s/Member-Donor-and-Volunteer-Form-DWP.pdf. We thank you in advance for your support!
MARCH 19 SPEAKER SERIES PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED:
In keeping with the best current public health advice in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in sensitivity to many of our fans and members who fall into the demographic most affected by COVID-19, we have canceled the WCHS Speaker Series event scheduled for March 19 at 5:30pm. We are in touch with our speaker, Michael Hardy, and we look forward to bringing him back later this year for another Speaker Series event.
Thank you for your interest in our programming, and stay healthy!
We are delighted to see the Watauga County Commissioners and the Boone Town Council finally having a dialogue (for the first time in nearly seven years) about working together to address one of downtown Boone's most pressing needs while also working creatively to save one of downtown's architectural gems--the Oscar and Suma Hardin House.
We'll post an historic image of the house as well as some history on the house in the comments, but in the meantime, here's the article on this week's meeting.
BOONE — During their first joint meeting in six and a half years, the Boone Town Council and the Watauga County Board of Commissioners agreed to explore the possibility of
DON'T MISS THIS DOCUMENTARY FILM! November 14, 7:00pm, at the Appalachian Theatre. Previews/trailers/cartoons/newsreels start at 6:30pm. Doors open at 6:00pm. Birthday cake (it's also the theater's 81st birthday) will be served after the film!
This documentary is a five-year effort by Phil Arnold and countless helpers. It's packed with images and footage from Digital Watauga's collections, as well as interviews with at least 20 members of the Boone and Watauga communities.
Tickets go on pre-sale for donors at 10:00am this morning and go on sale for the public on November 8 at 10:00am.
Hollywood in the High Country: A History of the Appalachian Theatre By Philip Arnold Debut screening November 14, 2019
Digital Watauga
NOW HIRING! Our Spring 2020 Digital Watauga Technician position is now posted. This position can be coordinated with an internship at your school of higher learning.
See more in the image below or the link here: https://www.arlibrary.org/about-watauga-library/employment
NOW ON SPECIAL SALE! Copies of our landmark book "The Architectural History of Watauga County, North Carolina" are now on sale through the WCHS for just $30! This is a great bargain over the usual price of $45 per copy, so we urge you to get your copy today. Want it shipped? Just add $5 to your payment.
It's not too early to think about your holiday gift list! You can order your copy using the form here (scroll down at page): https://www.wataugacountyhistoricalsociety.org/join-usdonate
We're excited to call your attention to the latest installment from our friend Dr. Gary Boye in his history of film exhibition in Watauga County. This installment covers "Temporary Film Theaters in Watauga County, Part 1: Boone, 1905-1954."
Gary's research is top notch, and you really should check this out.
In the earliest days of film exhibition, any place that could accommodate a sizable crowd could be used as a theater. In larger towns, live performance venues such as theaters or opera houses could easily be converted to the showing of motion pictures. In rural areas such as Boone, the places for fi...
Boone, NC
28607
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