On September 5, 1953, a nuclear reactor went online at North Carolina State College (now North Carolina State University) in Raleigh, making it the world’s first nuclear research reactor to be designed, built, and operated by an academic institution.
Producing thermal watts instead of electrical, the reactor gave nuclear engineering students a hands-on opportunity to learn about nuclear reactor operation.
On September 5, 1802, political rivals John Stanly and Richard Dobbs Spaight, both armed with smooth-bore flintlock pistols, took deliberate aim at each other and fired. It was 5:30 p.m., and the pair were positioned behind the Masonic Lodge in New Bern. Approximately 300 spectators crowded around.
On September 5, 1917, the Pamlico County Schools inaugurated the first motorized school bus service in North Carolina.
Pamlico, among the most rural counties in the state, sought to make transportation for students faster and easier. Before the widespread use of automobiles, horse-drawn wagons were used to transport students to school, and the state didn’t provide that student transportation could come at public expense until 1911.
On September 5, 1891, George W. Vanderbilt II purchased land for the Young Men’s Institute in Asheville.
During construction of his lavish home in Asheville, Vanderbilt decided to establish a community center for his African American workers. The building, constructed in 1892 and 1893, was designed by Richard Sharp Smith, who was also the supervising architect of the Biltmore House.
On September 4, 1826, early industrialist John Fulenwider died.
On September 4, 1957, Dorothy Counts enrolled at Harding High School, one of four segregated white schools in Charlotte to receive their first African American students that day. She was accompanied by Reginald Hawkins, a dentist, who would go on to be the first black man in the modern South to seek statewide office when he ran for governor in 1968.
On September 3, 1960, Wilbur Hardee opened a drive-in hamburger stand in Greenville, launching what would become Hardee’s Food Systems, Inc., the fifth-largest fast-food restaurant chain in the United States.
On September 2, 1952, gubernatorial candidate William B. Umstead dedicated Grandfather Mountain’s Mile-High Swinging Bridge near Linville, and his daughter Merle became the first person to cross it.