On June 29, 1990, Governor Jim Martin dedicated the final segment of Interstate 40, a 2,554-mile highway that stretches from Wilmington to Barstow, California. The first Interstate-funded construction on I-40 nationwide had taken place in Haywood County more than three decades earlier.
Nearly 3,000 people were in attendance for the opening ceremony.
On June 29, 1987, folk music legend Libba Cotten died.
Cotten taught the world “Freight Train,” “Shake Sugaree” and a host of other songs. Her “parlor ragtime” style was no less elegant for the guitar being turned upside down and the thumb and finger roles being reversed.
On June 29, 1905, Cumberland County native “Moonlight” Graham played in his first and only Major League Baseball game. His story came to national attention after being incorporated into the 1989 hit film Field of Dreams.
On June 28, 1973, the General Assembly designated the emerald as the state’s official precious stone.
Emeralds are a variety of the mineral beryl. Beryl is colorless in its pure state, but chromium turns beryl green. The aquamarine is blue beryl, and there are also yellow, light green, red and pink varieties. Beryl, in all its variety of colors, is found among mica, quartz and feldspar, all of which are abundant in the North Carolina mountains.
On June 28, 1799, land agent and mapmaker John Strother measured the American Indian pictographs on Paint Rock in Madison County. Strother wrote in this diary on that day that the vertical formation was 107 feet tall and that the:
Pictures of some human’s – wild beasts fish & fowls were to be seen plainly made with red paint.
On June 28, 1969, the first National Hollerin’ Contest was held in Spivey’s Corner in Sampson County.
The contest is the product of the farm culture of the Sandhills region. Before the advent of the telephone, yelling loudly, or hollering, was the primary way farmers and neighbors communicated in rural North Carolina. As new technologies made communication easier, the practice began to disappear.
On June 27, 1963, more than 150 people in mostly 19th century garb and nearly 25 wagons pulled by livestock departed from a Wilkes County farm for a three-day, 35-mile journey to Boone.