On April 1, 1987, WRAL-TV in Raleigh broke the “Gar-barge” story.
The story began a year earlier when Alabama businessman Lowell Harrelson proposed to alleviate overcrowding in a Long Island landfill by sending garbage to landfills across the South via barges. A parcel in Jones County was selected as the site for the first transfer of waste, and more than 3,000 tons of garbage set sail aboard the Mobro 4000 in late March 1987 bound for the port in Morehead City.
On March 31, 1862, Vincent Colyer was appointed Superintendent of the Poor for the Union’s Department of North Carolina. Stationed in the occupied town of New Bern, Colyer immediately set about employing African Americans as skilled laborers to work on fortifications for the town. He managed to have three sets of earthworks constructed during his brief tenure.
On March 31, 1934, songwriter John D. Loudermilk was born in Durham.
Loudermilk learned to play instruments at the Salvation Army church he attended as a child, and his mother taught him to play a cigar box ukulele built by his father. At age 13, he performed on Durham radio station WTIK as Little Johnny Dee, his recording name on the Colonial label.
On March 31, 1973, Carowinds, near Charlotte, opened to the public.
Miss North Carolina and Miss South Carolina cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony. Young Charlotte resident, Jimmy Henderson, waving a giant ticket, led about 3,000 visitors into the park in a parade reminiscent of the opening of Disneyland in California.
On March 30, 1811, Jacob W. Holt, notable carpenter, builder and contractor, was born in Virginia.
On March 29, 1795, Patriot, planter and prominent Raleigh resident Joel Lane died.
Born in Halifax sometime in the early 1740s, Lane is believed to have been a descendant of early settlers of Jamestown. After serving as justice of the peace and sheriff in Halifax County, Lane acquired several thousand acres of land in what is now Wake County and moved there sometime in the late 1760s.
On March 29, 1982, UNC basketball Coach Dean Smith and his Tar Heels won the school’s first national title since 1957. The Tar Heels took on the Georgetown University Hoyas in New Orleans in final game in the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament that year.