On February 8, 1944, Westray Battle Boyce was promoted to lieutenant colonel and received the Legion of Merit. Few North Carolina men, and no Tar Heel women, had a more distinguished service record in World War II than Colonel Westray Battle Boyce. In August 1942 she entered training for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, which became a part of the Army in September 1943 when the name was changed to the Women’s Army Corps (WACs).
Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History
On February 8, 1898, Warren Coleman and his associates laid the cornerstone for the nation’s first black-owned cotton mill in Concord.
Congressman George H. White, himself a civil rights pioneer, was the main speaker at the event. The company represented the first major cooperative effort by North Carolina’s African American businessmen.
On February 8, 1949, North Carolina’s Merci Train car, filled with gifts of gratitude from French citizens, arrived in Raleigh. The French train, with 49 cars—one for each state at the time, plus one for Washington, D. C. and the territory of Hawaii to share—was sent in response to the American Friendship Train. That train was sent to France by the United States the previous year, and consisted of 700 boxcars filled with relief supplies.
On February 8, 1948, designer Alexander Julian was born in Chapel Hill.
Julian’s father owned a menswear boutique, Julian’s, downtown near the UNC campus. Growing up visiting and later working in the store, young Julian took a natural career path.
On February 7, 1847, New Hanover County native Capt. John Henry King Burgwin died of a wound he received while leading an assault during the Taos Revolt, an insurrection of Mexicans and their Pueblo Indian allies against the American occupation of what is now New Mexico.
On February 7, 1978, the Graham-based fast food chain Biscuitville filed to register a trademark for the first time.
Now based in Greensboro, the chain got its start as Pizzaville in 1966 when former flour salesman Maurice Jennings began selling take-out pizzas from two bread and milk stores that he owned in Burlington. The chain expanded to six stores across the Triad region and southern Virginia.
On February 7, 1862, Federal ships bombarded Fort Bartow, part of the Confederate defenses on Roanoke Island. One of three Confederate earthen forts on the west side of the island, Fort Bartow mounted nine guns. The other two garrisons were Fort Huger and Fort Blanchard.
The three forts were designed to protect the mainland from Federal invasion and to complement obstructions placed in the channel. Of the three forts, Bartow was the only one actively engaged in what would become known as the Battle of Roanoke Island.
On February 6, 1971, Mike’s Grocery, a mom-and-pop store in Wilmington, was firebombed and burned. It’s unclear who was responsible for the arson, which came after a week of increasing racial tension and violence over the desegregation of the city’s high schools.
On February 6, 1963, the General Assembly met in the Legislative Building on Jones Street for the first time. The Assembly had previously met in the State Capitol—now a state historic site—on Union Square since 1840.
On February 6, 2010, Swain County’s six-mile “Road to Nowhere” was officially abandoned by the federal government.