Thanks to our partners at the Moore County Genealogical Society, DigitalNC is proud to announce that over a hundred new issues of The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.) are now available! The Pilot has faithfully served the Sandhills region for over a century, and already has an amazing digital presence on DigitalNC with over 3,000 issues currently available. The new issues are from 1970 to 1971 and feature stories fresh from the golf capital of North Carolina.
Excitingly, the illustrations of Glen Rounds are featured in many of these new editions. Rounds was a prominent illustrator and children’s author during the late half of the twentieth century, and he lived in Pinehurst, N.C. for decades. He was a six-time winner of the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was a recipient of the Kerlan Award for Children’s Literature. In 1980, Rounds received the North Carolina Award for his achievements—which is the highest civilian award a citizen of the state can receive. His works evoked the splendor of the natural world around him, which often included North Carolina’s flora and fauna. You may recognize his unique style from his illustrations of stories such as Wild Appaloosa, Beavers, or his edition of The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. The author of this blog grew up in Moore County, and has fond memories of reading Rounds, whose publications often lined the shelves of local libraries and book stores.
Beyond Glen Rounds’ inclusion in these issues, The Pilot chronicles the Sandhills masterfully. During the 1970s, towns such as Pinehurst, Southern Pines, and Carthage were communities unrivaled by any in the state. Pinehurst had been a prominent resort town for decades, and the rest of Moore County was used to hosting a wide range of golfers, tourists, and equestrians within its quiet pines. This focus on hospitality created an atmosphere where local businesses were bolstered and natural beauty was preserved. Many of the businesses advertised in the pages still stand today as local staples, such as The Jefferson Inn or the Sunrise Theater. Transplants to Southern Pines, The Pilot‘s home, often liken the area to fictional communities such as Stars Hollow from the Gilmore Girls or Sleepy Hollow. Looking back on old editions of The Pilot is a wonderful way of learning more about the Sandhills region, one of our state’s gems.
You can find the new editions of The Pilot now online at DigitalNC here. Thanks again to our wonderful partners at the Moore County Genealogical Society for making this collaboration possible. You can learn more about the Society on their partner page linked here. If you’re interested in learning more about Moore County (and who could blame you?), you can find all of DigitalNC’s holdings of The Pilot online here.
