Topics Related to Wilmington

The band Stray Local was formed in Wilmington by married duo Hannah Lomas and Justin Rowen. Originally organized as a largely live band, their music is changing in a world with less live music.

Not every North Carolinian who served in the armed forces during the First World War carried a gun on the battlefields of France. Some, like Camelia Rutherford London, were administrators.

In May 1918, the Department of Labor announced its intentions to ease the labor shortages hampering government projects by recruiting Puerto Rican laborers. The federal government planned to compensate the estimated 75,000 volunteers with affordable meals, free housing, a wage of thirty-five cents per hour, and overtime pay. Transportation from the island to the mainland United States was provided through the War Department, which used transport vessels to ferry laborers to the coast after dropping supplies at San Juan.

In the course of my research for our office’s latest book North Carolina and the Great War, 1914-1918, perhaps no story affected me as much as that of Wilmington native Isaac Tillery.

Rachel Maria Loman was one of ten thousand women who served overseas as nurses in the Army Nursing Corps during the First World War. Loman, who was known as Myra by her family members, was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Columbus County.

On December 5, 1854, the first lots of Oakdale Cemetery in Wilmington were sold.Oakdale, Wilmington’s first municipal burial ground, is one of the most beautiful and scenic graveyards in the Old North State. It remains the town’s largest cemetery, and is noted for the abundance of prominent Wilmingtonians and other North Carolinians who are buried there.

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.