Wilson Daily Times, 6 March 1940.
Elm City’s first black high school was damaged beyond saving in a fire in early 1940. County school authorities quickly made plans to replace the building using Works Progress Administration funds. As to the question of the 334 “schoolless” students, no decision was ever made, and children whose families could not arrange to transfer them elsewhere sat out until the new facility — Frederick Douglass High School — opened in 1941.
Wilson Daily Times, 6 July 1928.
Many of us remember Jim Barbour‘s pressing club as Wardrobe Cleaners at its later South Pender and Elvie Street location. Nannie Barbour and then Willie R. Barnes operated the business for decades. (Ben Mincey, of course, was the legendary leader of the Red Hots.)
Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 23 March 1940.
With the destruction by fire of Elm City’s black high school in 1940, the education of local children slammed to a halt. Amanda Mitchell Cameron was in the eighth grade at the time. She recalls that, rather than delay their high school studies, two of her older siblings carpooled to Wilson with a neighborhood boy to attend Darden High School. Most children, however, stayed home until the newly built school opened in 1941.
Wilson Daily Times, 1 September 1932.
Firemen allowed a grass fire at “a negro cemetery” to “burn over” the field. Alarm boxes at two locations on Stantonsburg Street indicate that the cemetery was Oakdale, which the Town of Wilson had abandoned in favor of Vick almost two decades earlier.
Wilson Daily Times, 2 December 1932.
The Lincoln, a white-owned movie theatre serving black patrons, did not reopen after the fire. Its owner auctioned off his movie equipment, organ, and other fixtures, and the building was soon advertised for rent. In my youth, it was home to the Midtown Lounge. It now houses Whole Truth Church of God in Christ.
Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 31 March 1934.
Evansdale Colored School was built with Rosenwald funds.
Fire tore through downtown Wilson in May 1897 after Briggs and Flemmings’ prize house went up in flames. The first edifice of Saint Mark’s Episcopal church was among the casualties.
Wilson Times, 14 May 1897.
Richmond Times-Dispatch, 11 October 1910.
More about the fire that destroyed seven of Samuel H. Vick‘s rental houses.
