City of Asheboro history

African-Americans in Weldon, N.C. had begun meeting as indepenent Odd Fellows in March 1841, with a second informal lodge formed in Wilmington soon after.

A Grand Lodge of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows was organized in North Carolina in 1843, but the first GUOOF lodge of record in the state was the Republican Star Lodge No.

Hanks Lodge, Franklinville, built 1850.

Their stated purpose was to “Visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead and educate the orphan.” The Odd Fellows were considered one of the most liberal social organizations, and in 1851 became the only fraternity in the United States to include both men and women. [iv]

Free black citizens had apparently clustered in the North Main area even before the Civil War; the first school for Negro children in Asheboro was established there after 1865.[ii]

Moore only began administration of his wife’s estate in 1868 in connection with administration of the estates of Nancy Hoover and his sons.

The church was built on an acre of land deeded on January 15, 1869 to David Worth, Jesse Lytle, Donald Steth and J.H. Hoover by local attorney Bolivar B. Bulla and his wife Tibitha. (DB/P- rec.

Elvira Worth, seen with the Walker children.” The young man to her right must be Herbert Jackson, her son by Governor Worth’s law partner Samuel Jackson who died in 1875.

27, 1876]. Earlier that same year he had been elected as one of the first three Justices of the Peace for the newly-created Asheboro Township.

Olivet #195); and Liberty? (Oakland #501). The “Pride of Randolph #380,” established in Asheboro around 1880, was apparently the first African-American lodge of Masons.

In an unusual move, in 1897 the state legislature passed a bill to officially incoporate the Diamond Star Lodge of Odd Fellows in Asheboro. [xiv]

The Randolph County chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was organized in 1906 at the suggestion of Mrs.

That this kind of celebration was not limited to the urban South is found in an account in the Asheboro newspaper of the Fourth of July, 1907:

The first of today's base of hosiery mills came with the chartering of Acme Hosiery Mills on December 19, 1908.

The current Randolph County Courthouse was built in 1909 and during the next decade, several more advances were made, including a fire department and Asheboro's first hospital.

Cornerstone of the 1911 Colored Graded School on North Main Street, now in the foundation of Central High School.

The difference with the influenza of 1917/18 (now called the Influenza A Strain) was that it triggered a virulent reaction in the immune system of those who were strongest- those twenty to forty years old, young and fit; in many cases it killed in less than 48 hours from first fever to last breath.

They may also be carried about in the air in the form of dust coming from dried mucus, coughing or sneezing, or from careless people who spit on the floor or on the sidewalk.” (The Courier, Asheboro, 17 Oct 1918, p6)

When the Randolph County Board of Health met in February 1920 “a number of schools, churches and Sunday schools of the county were closed on account of the prevalence of influenza.

[xvii] Randolph County Deed Book 220, Page 212 (1925)

When the property was sold in 1930 (DB227, Pg 421) the KOP Trustees were M.S. Brewer, Albert Henley, and Ed Lynn.

1931 and manuscript copy in the Randolph Room.] Thomas Moore’s personal popularity continued to provide him with public work that helped support his family, but often with some unexpected reversal.

[xxi] Their Lot on N. Main Street behind what was the livery stable was sold to B.S. Morris at Randolph County Deed Book 278, Pages 84 & 232, 1936.

Groundbreaking was held June 15, 1946, and grading work on the $100,000 project began in August.

About 1950 the Randolph County Historical Society erected a series of painted wooden markers at sites around the county, but none still exist.

A miniature railroad, the “Asheboro Flyer,” was opened in May 1955, circling the park on a 1300-foot track.

In Greensboro the black employees of Woolworth’s were the first to be served at the store’s lunch counter, on July 25, 1960.

Randolph Community College opened in 1962 as an industrial school, joining North Carolina's new system of community colleges the following year.

Newspaper accounts actually show that the Asheboro sit-ins were nearly four years after the Woolworth sit-ins in Greensboro, beginning Saturday January 25th, 1964, and still going strong as of February the 17th, 1964.

Asheboro and Randolph County’s memory for this kind of thing being not much more than a generation long, the clock was dismantled in 1968 when First National Bank was rebuilt.

The national headquarters of the GUOOF is still in Philadelphia, but since 1981 the national headquarters of the IOOF has been in Winston-Salem.[ix]

[x] See the RALEIGH HISTORIC LANDMARK DESIGNATION, 1985, of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows (GUOOF) Building, 115 East Hargett St http://rhdc.org/sites/default/files/Grand%20United%20Order%20of%20Odd%20Fellows%20Landmark%20App_web.pdf

At the Randolph County Commissioners’ meeting held in January, 1995, the commissioners approved spending $31,700 for construction of a granite monument to be built on the courthouse lawn.

The Randolph County Commissioners approved spending $8,439 for the expansion in November 2004.