Scheduled for Demolition but Now Thriving as a Museum

Imagine a small, bustling community taking shape in a remote, isolated area and growing with the development of agriculture, naval stores and iron works. That scene is an early picture of what is now Lee County (before it was carved in 1907 from Moore and Chatham counties).

Commerce was initially transported over unpaved roads and waterways — the Cape Fear and Deep rivers. Once coal was mined commercially and added to other products of the local economy, a rail connection was indispensable for further growth.

At the junction of two new railroads, the community of Sanford began to take shape in the 1860s, and soon T. W. Tucker arrived to manage the burgeoning rail business. As the first depot agent for the Raleigh and Augusta Air Line Railroad, he and his family became the initial residents of the Railroad House, the oldest house in the city.

Built near the depot in the center of town in 1872, two years before Sanford itself was incorporated, the classic Gothic Revival frame cottage has always occupied a very prominent spot in the community and demonstrates that the city was originally a railroad town. Because the city was named for C.O. Sanford, the chief civil engineer for the railroad, the influence of transportation is clearly important.

The well-being of the Railroad House has had its peaks and valleys. Fortunately, today it is thriving as a principal component of Depot Park, which has evolved into the cultural and communal center of Sanford where concerts and events are held and families play and enjoy leisure time. However, the stability of the house was not so certain several decades ago.

While Tucker and his family lived at the Railroad House, a school for girls was run there by his wife Inder. Because Tucker was also Sanford’s first mayor, the house flourished as a mainstay of community life. However, its importance began to fade. In 1916 the railroad sold the then 44-year-old house, which next became the home for several families before it was used as a tea room.

Because the house had deteriorated, it was scheduled for demolition in 1962. However, interested citizens banded together to save it and formed the Railroad House Historical Association. Through their efforts the house was moved across the street to its current location, restored and given a new life first as the home of the Chamber of Commerce for 30 years and now as the only historical museum of Lee County.

“Interesting artifacts are located throughout the house,” says Emily Mierisch, who volunteers regularly at the Railroad House because “I just love history.” With historical photos, objects and documents of the area’s early days, the house is indispensable in preserving local history as itself is being preserved.

A historic steam engine, known as Old No. 12, anchors an important part of the landscape near the house. With two small wheels in front and eight large driving wheels, it was placed in service in 1911 and officially retired in 1955.

Also part of the park is the passenger depot (circa 1900), a one-story brick structure typical of its period and renovated in 1976. Its charming, wide, overhanging red tile roof with flared eaves almost rivals the artistic architecture of the Railroad House.

The house’s central chimney with a recessed lancet panel (inspired by the beauty of cathedral windows) on each face and a crenellated cap adds an antiquated charisma to Sanford’s historic district that encompasses 53 buildings, most dating from 1895 to 1930.

The Railroad House’s simple board-and-batten siding is enriched in the front by decorative features such as central double windows, each with a four-over-four sash. Other embellishments include gables on the main roof, two dormers and entrance porch that are ornamented with a finial and cross-bracing.

The interior of the house is finished in simple fashion with wide beaded baseboards and plaster walls. The original floors are mostly intact, and the mantels have a typical nineteenth-century design. The house consists of a one-and-half-story main block, which has three rooms on the lower level, and a one-story rear wing with its own chimney.

Visiting the Railroad House, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a great way to celebrate local and national history.

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Note: The post is based on my article about the Railroad House published in the April 2020 issue of OutreachNC Magazine.

What Is a Whirligig?

Whirligig by Vollis Simpson of Wilson, NC, on display
in Wilmington, NC, at the Cameron Art Museum

Have you seen a whirligig recently? Everyone seems to have a particular idea of what a whirligig is and when to use the word. Simply, a whirligig is an object that spins or whirls. Individually as well as in groupings, whirligigs have become noteworthy, particularly in the American South, as an artistic form of creative expression.

A whirligig -- as fun to say as it is to see -- is a whimsical, wind-powered creation that whirls and turns on a pivot. The term dates to the fifteenth century and appears to have its roots in the Middle English word of whirlegigg, which was formed from whirlen (to whirl) and gigg (top). The term is applied to a variety of items – living and inanimate objects.

Creation by Self-Taught Artist

Small whirligig by Simpson

A whirligig is an inimitable creation by a self-taught artist who has no formal training – except for the whirligig that is a beetle, so named because it swims about in circles. With two pairs of eyes and clubbed antennae, the whirligig beetle lives on the surface of water where it spins and spins. Otherwise, whirligigs are inanimate and typically crafted by folk or visionary artists. The simplest wind-powered whirligig is a pinwheel, which demonstrates an important feature: blade surface. Although the designs of whirligigs may be simple, some are very complex, particularly when a creative artist such as Vollis Simpson of Wilson, NC, finds a “man or mule, hat or cat, hidden in any castoff sheet of steel” and fashions it into a whirligig.

Components are crafted out of wood, plastic, metal, and other materials, sometimes taken from discarded objects to recycle their parts and extend their lives, and then hand-painted to provide artistic expression. Antique whirligigs have been preserved in museums as creative expressions of earlier generations, as described in The New York Times. However, whirligigs are making a modern comeback, with credit for reviving them during the 1980s given to Ander Lunde of Chapel Hill, NC, who published eight books on how to build whirligigs.

Literary Connection

A whirligig as an artistic expression is sometimes even literary. For example, Whirligigs is the title of a collection of twenty-four short stories by North Carolina author O. Henry (born William Sydney Porter) that also includes the well-known “The Ransom of Red Chief.” In the collection, a lesser-known story, which takes the title of “The Whirligig of Life” to express the whimsical nature of life and relationships that change as the wind blows, recounts the visits of a Tennessee couple to a justice of the peace to “divo’ce” unhappily only to reunite blissfully the next day. In addition, Shakespeare uses whirlagig as a metaphor for “time” in Twelfth Night when the clown Feste states that “the whirligig of time brings in his revenges,” an expression we know currently as “you reap what you sow.” Sometimes whirligig is a label applied to a person, such as in The Gambler by Tyodor Dostoyevsky, whose character expresses concern that a stepfather “is going to marry that silly whirligig of a Frenchwoman--that actress, or something worse.”

Whirligigs stand guard over a field at the entrance to Fearrington
Village in Chatham County, NC

Cultural and Educational Destination

More often the artistic expression is visual art – and a tourist attraction. Sightseers enjoy watching whirligigs move as the wind blows and learning about the artists who created them for fun. Some whirligigs can be found at restaurants and in parks, and others adorn private gardens and yards. However, they attract more attention when massed in collections. The most famous location probably is the “whirligig farm” on Wiggins Mill Road in Lucama, NC, that had been constructed by Simpson on his land where more than thirty whirligigs, some more than five feet high, once attracted many visitors. Tourists are now directed to a new two-acre downtown park in nearby Wilson where these whirligigs have been designated to serve as a centerpiece to help shape the city’s industrial artisan district and be a cultural and educational destination. Wilson also holds an annual Whirligig Festival in November, and this event includes a whirligig building contest with Simpson as a judge.

On display at Cameron Art Museum

Small whirligig by Vollis Simpson

Cultural Recognition

Work of a junkyard poet

Whirligigs crafted by folk artists are also exclusive justification for a cultural award or recognition. Although garden shops, particularly online suppliers such as Wind & Weather and Plow and Hearth, sell mass-produced whirligigs, the ones individually crafted by folk artists such as Simpson, whose work has been profiled by Public Broadcasting System, are recognized for their cultural contributions. Although Simpson was wittily labeled a “junkyard poet” by The New York Times, he has been celebrated by organizations such as the N.C. Folklore Society for his “meaningful contributions to the transmission, appreciation and observance of traditional culture and folklife” and the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources that presented him the North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor. Southern Living has also presented a Heroes of the New South Award to Simpson for his contributions to art and culture. In addition, his work is now part of the permanent collections of the American Museum of Visionary Art in Baltimore, High Museum in Atlanta, and N.C. Museum of Art in Raleigh. 

When Simpson and his whirligigs were honored during a fundraiser at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC, I visited to gauge the interest and reaction of the museum’s patrons. I left with the feeling that whirligigs tell an authentic story in our regional folklife. Although whirligigs mass-produced in Asia with stamped and painted metal can be cheaply bought, the true artistic ones – only the ones that connect to culture – hold value in the American South.