HISTORICAL SKETCHES

CANE CREEK BAPTIST CHURCH

Number 14: February 2006 www.canecreek.org 6901 Orange Grove Rd., Hillsborough, NC 27278

POWER TO THE PEOPLE !!!

Late last summer, Ronnie Kirk made a discovery. In the brambles behind the church he found a concrete obelisk lying on its side. At the top was the bronze plaque shown here. The wording may be hard to make out. It says: "Built by the Emergency Relief Administration of North Carolina 1933-1935."

Ronnie told Scott Hudson about it and Scott told me. We were all puzzled about what it could signify. What in the world was the Emergency Relief Administration? And what was built? None of the older folks we asked could give us any hints. So what do you do with a puzzle like this? You Google it! For those few of you who don't know, Google is a powerful search engine that you can use to access a world of information on the Internet using your computer. It's like having a world-class library in your own home. So I Googled "Emergency Relief Administration." Here is what I found. The Depression hit in 1929. At the next election, Franklin Roosevelt became president and took office on March 4, 1933. By the end of March, congress had passed legislation establishing the ERA as the first of the New Deal projects to help the country out of the depression. It was given millions of dollars to fund projects all over the country. Projects had to do local folks some good and they had to employ local folks to get the work done. Later on, the Works Projects Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Rural Electrification Administration did the same thing and did it so well that the ERA was absorbed into The Social Security Administration in 1935.

So that tells us about ERA in general, but what were they doing in Orange Grove? Fortunately, Google helped out here, too. The North Carolina ERA published a record of its projects and the record is available on-line through the library at UNC. Here I found that the project affecting our community was the bringing of electricity out from Chapel Hill into the countryside. This was only the second New Deal rural electric line in the entire country. At our Fall Festival, I displayed a picture from this book showing the erection of a power pole. Our church is in the background. (At least I think it's our church.)

Next, I scanned through old copies of the Chapel Hill Weekly and found more. In the April 5, 1935 issue there was a front-page headline: "Farmers of Orange will get electric line if they will contribute a fifth of the cost." Here are some quotes:

" Nearly a hundred farmers assembled at the White Cross school to hear officials of the ERA describe a plan to bring electric current into their homes. The projected line is an extension, nearly ten miles long, of the line that now runs out from Chapel Hill to beyond Calvander. The outcome of the meeting was the appointment of a committee to raise the money -- $3000 out of the total cost of $15,510 -- which the users of the current are called upon to contribute ... Those present at the meeting displayed great enthusiasm for the project, and confidence was expressed that the $3000 would be obtained. The committee is composed of Charles Stanford, Will Suitt, Manly Snipes, Clem Cheek, and Charles Teer ... It is a dairy country and many of the farmers sell milk in quantity to the Durham Dairy Products Company. Hence they are particularly interested in the use of electricity for refrigeration. One farmer said that he had figured out that he could save money by substituting electric refrigeration for ice. Another who owned an isolated plant said that he had a heavy outlay for gasoline for his generator and for repairs and that he would gain by buying current instead of generating it with his own plant. All, of course, wanted electric lights ... The total cost embraces $7800 for materials, $4000 for skilled labor, and $3710 for unskilled labor ... The people who came to the meeting were so interested in the discussion that they stayed until the janitor let them know that it was time for him to put out the lights."

These days we are used to a project's taking years to complete. The money must be appropriated, engineers must draw plans, and property owners must be negotiated with. But not in 1935! Local folks quickly rolled up their sleeves and went to work. Here are quotes from the May 31st paper.

"Thanks to the enterprise and cooperative spirit of the farmers in the section centering on Orange Grove, the electric power line started this spring is nearing completion ... The current will be turned on about two weeks hence ... twenty three farmers have signed up as customers, and undoubtedly others will come in later. Some have already wired their houses and are ready to have their lights burning as soon as the "juice" begins to flow ... 'The ten mile line ... to the Stanford farm is about 60% completed' said Mr. Davis yesterday, 'and we are going ahead rapidly. The poles and wire are in place as far as Orange Grove. ... We expect to build some of the secondaries -- the branch lines to individual homes -- before the poles are up along the full ten mile distance but the wires will have to stay cold until the circuit to the Stanford farm is completed.' ... Not only will the new line bring electric lighting to the farmers, but they will use the current for refrigeration, radios, water pumps, and various appliances."

I wanted to know about how electricity affected life back in the thirties so I asked Charles Snipes, Merritt Kirk, and Mae Crawford. Everyone cooked on woodstoves; there was an outhouse in the back yard; homework was done at the kitchen table by a kerosene lamp. Everyone took a bath on Saturday night with water heated on the wood stove. When electricity came, families had lights and they bought refrigerators, stoves, and radios. Before electricity, local dairy herds were not more than 30 head and milking was done by hand. As each two and a half gallon pail was filled, it was emptied into a ten-gallon can and placed in well water or in a spring to cool. Before about 1930 only the cream could be sold. The buyer was Waverly Ice Cream Company in Durham. So-called "barnyard milk" could be sold to places that used the milk for cooking. Later, whole milk could be taken to town to be sold for drinking. About 1944, electric milking came into use and herd sizes grew to their present 100 head or more.

Later this year, we will drag the obelisk from the woods and find a good place for it. The plaque will remind us of an important milestone in Orange Grove history.

Ed Johnson