On February 1, 1889, the first streetcar in North Carolina made its debut in Asheville. The first line extended from Pack Square down Biltmore Avenue and Southside Avenue, and then was routed west of present-day McDowell Street to a train depot.
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On February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s Department Store in downtown Greensboro and asked to be served. They were refused, launching a sit-in movement that would spread throughout North Carolina and the South.
The four students, Ezell Blair, Jr. (later known as Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil and David L. Richmond, were all freshmen from nearby North Carolina A&T State University.
On January 28, 1934, a devastating fire destroyed much of Wrightsville Beach, including the legendary Oceanic Hotel.
A photo of an earlier Challenger mission crew presented to the people of North Carolina by NASA and now in the collection of the N.C. Museum of History
On January 27, 1931, Cheerwine inventor Lewis D. Peeler died in Salisbury.
Born in 1866, Peeler studied at a local Lutheran college and in Virginia before entering business. He tried his hand at a number of different enterprises, including farming and wholesaling, before beginning a soda business in 1913.
On January 27, 1993, Andre the Giant, world-famous wrestler and Richmond County resident, died in France.
Born Andre Roussimoff in Grenoble, France in 1946, he suffered from acromegaly, a result of a pituitary disorder that caused his body to over-produce growth hormones. He grew to be giganitic, later billed at 7’4” and 500 pounds. At 17, Andre moved to Paris, where he was discovered by a wresting promoter. He trained and worked hard at the sport. He enjoyed success in several countries and as a variety of personae before moving to the United States.
Image from the N.C. Museum of History.
On January 27, 1788, William Tryon, royal governor of both North Carolina and New York, died.
On January 29, 1920, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation establishing the Nantahala National Forest.
Photographs of holes number 10 and 12 on “Thistle Dhu” course
that appeared in the August 1919 edition of Popular Science.