Mack

206 North Reid Street.

The one hundred sixty-second in a series of posts highlighting buildings in East Wilson Historic District, a national historic district located in Wilson, North Carolina. As originally approved, the district encompasses 858 contributing buildings and two contributing structures in a historically African-American section of Wilson. (A significant number have since been lost.) The district was developed between about 1890 to 1940 and includes notable examples of Queen Anne, Bungalow/American Craftsman, and Shotgun-style architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

As described in the nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District, this building is: “ca. 1930; 1 story; James Mack house; bungalow with gable-end form and subsidiary  gabled porch; aluminum sided; Mack operated a shoe-shine shop at the railroad station.”

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In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Mack Jas (c; Beulah) Baltimore Shoe Shop h 206 N Reid

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 206 North Reid, owned and valued at $2500, James Mack, 36, shoe shop cobbler, and wife Beaulah, 35, both Georgia natives.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 206 Reid, owned and valued at $2000, James Mack, 36, shoe shop owner, born in Avera, Georgia, and wife Beaulah, 35, born in Salisbury, N.C.; and roomer Robert Johnson, 22, born in Winston-Salem, N.C., Wilson County teacher.

In the 1941 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Mack Jas (c; Beulah) Baltimore Shoe Shop h 206 N Reid

In the 1947 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Mack Jas (c; Beulah) Baltimore Shoe Shop h 206 N Reid

Beulah Mack died 28 December 1953 in Salisbury, Rowan County, North Carolina. Per her death certificate, she was born 7 September 1895 in Salisbury to Napoleon Brown and Laura Watson; was married; and lived at 206 North Reid Street, Wilson.

A genius for mechanics.

Greensboro Daily News 4 23 1917

Greensboro Daily News, 23 April 1917.

The same day, in the Wilson Daily Times:

A Genius.

There is a little negro in this town named Luther Mack, whose genius for mechanics should be developed and given unrestricted rein.

This boy, though only about 13 years old, has constructed an automobile all by himself and drives it along the streets.

With an engine closely resembling the one used in motorcycles, he made the connections with wire that he picked up around and the body he built out of a woodbox. It just shows what talent and application will do. The boy has a future before him if given an opportunity to apply the talents that are demonstrated in the toy auto.

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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: David Jeffers, 47, wife Ethel Jeffers, 42, step-son Luther Mack, 18, and in-law Stephen Ray, 55. The family was from Cumberland County, North Carolina.

In the Wilson city directory issued the same year, Mack is listed as an auto mechanic.

L Mack 1920

Mack’s love of cars apparently lead him to self-employment as a taxi driver, but he would not live long enough to fulfill his potential as a “genius for mechanics.” Luther Edgar Mack died of kidney disease just before his 24th (or 23rd) birthday in 1924.

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