Football season is in full swing, a good time to browse the many football-related images on DigitalNC. I found 49 football-related images in the Images of North Carolina collection, and there are countless more in the college and university yearbooks. Here are some of my favorites:

This photo shows the Davidson College football team in 1906, just 18 years after the first collegiate football game was played in North Carolina.

The action shot of a punter seems to be a popular subject for sports photographers. The photo at top is from the Braswell Memorial Library (Rocky Mount, N.C.); the one at bottom is from the Tufts Archives (Pinehurst, N.C.).

There are several good photos of high school football players and teams on DigitalNC. The top one here shows a player from Lansing High School in Ashe County; the one in the middle of the team from Davie County High School in 1961, and the photo at bottom shows the team from Waynesville Township High School in 1927.

These last three images above are shared by Ashe County Public Library (top), Davie County Public Library (middle), and Haywood County Public Library (bottom).

The 1922 Long Street Presbyterian Church congregation

The Fort Bragg Cultural Resources Management Program recently contributed a wonderful panoramic photograph of the Long Street Presbyterian Church congregation from the 1920s. The church was built in the nineteenth century but became inactive in the 1920s when the land on which it was located was acquired by Fort Bragg. The church still stands today, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other historic materials contributed by the Fort Bragg Cultural Resources Management Program to DigitalNC include two account books and a public road order.

Photographs from Rockingham Community College, recently added to DigitalNC, tell the story of a North Carolina town that is no more.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the mill village of Avalon in Rockingham County was home to more than 450 people. More than half of the population worked at Avalon Mills, which was the community center for the town, providing housing for residents social events. Images in the collection include a photograph of the Avalon baseball team, as well as the first picnic at the Avalon picnic ground.

In June of 1911 a massive fire swept through the mill, destroying it completely. Although there was some hope that the mill might be rebuilt, the village was eventually abandoned. Many of the residents moved to Mayodan, a nearby mill town. Interestingly, they moved not only themselves but their houses as well, by hitching them to horses.

First lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited Greensboro in March 1945 to speak at the Nineteenth Annual Homemaking Institute held at Bennett College. The visit is documented in a scrapbook compiled at Bennett, which has been recently digitized and published on DigitalNC. Mrs. Roosevelt spent her time in Greensboro addressing the Institute as well as Bennett College students and Greensboro area schoolchildren. Her speeches addressed the Institute’s theme of “The Veteran Returns to His Family,” educating citizens on their peacetime responsibilities to their veterans. Mrs. Roosevelt stressed the importance of all citizens becoming familiar with the GI Bill of Rights and assisting their veterans in assimilating into civilian life.

Here on DigitalNC we’ve got some up-to-the-minute stuff in addition to our historic materials – check out this photograph of two antebellum quilts donated to the Davie County Public Library earlier this very week.

And for the quilt enthusiasts, check out the other images of quilts on DigitalNC.org.

The Tour de France is underway, due to finish in Paris later this month. I’m sure there are some fine cyclists in the race, but I wonder how many of them could keep up with these guys?

This photo, of the 1910 Mocksville Bicycle Club, is from the Digital Davie exhibit, which features materials from the Davie County Public Library.

George M. Norwood and William B. Thompson with striped 1912 Cadillac

In June 1915, George Norwood and William Thompson set off for a cross-country road trip, driving from Goldsboro to San Franscisco in a 1912 Cadillac. These photos, from the Wayne County Public Library, show the two men and their car at the outset of the journey. They made it all the way to Ogden, Utah, where a broken axle forced them to give up driving and finish the journey by train. They returned home by boat, travelling through the recently-opened Panama Canal.

George M. Norwood (driver) and William B. Thompson just before they left on their trip

Here’s a nice photo, from the Transylvania County Library, of the City Market in Brevard, probably in the early 20th century.

A closer look reveals that those cows should be pretty nervous.

While North Carolina has fortunately not seen anything this year like the terrible floods currently affecting the Mississippi River, our state is no stranger to the tragedy and disaster caused by flooding. The Images of North Carolina collection currently has 98 different photos of floods and flood damage, showing floods in Rocky Mount, Ashe County, and Davie County.

This image, from the Charles S. Killebrew collection at the Braswell Memorial Library (Rocky Mount, N.C.), shows downtown Rocky Mount in 1962.