The State Magazine

Issue of August 1963

Most of us took the single North Carolina history course the school system offered (these days, we’re told, it offers none), and learned about the usual suspects: Virginia Dare, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Lost Colony, Blackbeard the pirate, mean old Governor Tryon and many other people and places woven into our rich historical tapestry.

But where one could really learn about the “Land of the Longleaf Pine” was by reading The State magazine, which was always available in the school library. Founded in 1933 by newspaper editor and author Carl Goerch, every issue of The State acquainted us with villages far away— usually, it seemed, at the other end of North Carolina (where there really were longleaf pines). They had fascinating names like Swan Quarter, Fuquay-Varina, Cerro Gordo, Kill Devil Hills and Okracoke. They sounded much more exotic than nearby places like Henrietta, Sandy Mush, Lattimore and Gilkey.

In the Cliffside Historical Society archives we found the edition of The State for August 31, 1963 that was devoted almost entirely to Rutherford County. The source for much of the edition’s material was our county’s own Clarence Griffin, a well-regarded historian. With the permission of Our State magazine (the renamed successor to The State), we’re republishing here all the Rutherford County articles in the issue.

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