Heritage
Carolina
Partners in Preservation: DOT and Tryon Palace
By Vina Hutchinson Farmer,
Editor
When the
I’ryon Palace
Commission
was formed in 1945, it had
many major allies, among
these the State Highway and
Public Works Commission,
the forerunner of today's
Department of Transportation
(DOT).
From major endeavors such
as re-routing a major highway
and moving a bridge during
the Palace’s reconstruction
to other projects such as
promoting Tryon Palace
Historic Sites & Gardens on
the cover of its 2007 map,
the North Carolina Department of
Transportation has proved itself time
and time again a tireless supporter of our
historical heritage.
Todays DOT has roots that date back
to 1915, when the state first organized
the State Highway Commission, which
did such a good job of building and
maintaining roads that North Carolina
soon earned the nickname of the "Good
Roads Stare.”1
The Early Years
The state’s organization of one central
department to oversee the development
of roads and bridges grew out of the
confusing morass that had plagued the
stare since the early 1 8rh century.
The completion of the King's Highway
in 1732 linked New Rem to Wilmington
and soon other networks of roads
followed. However, sizes of the roads in
this area varied as the General Assembly
decreed that roads should be 20 feet
wide, while Craven officials required that
roads only be 10 feet wide. According
to Alan Watson in A History of New
Bern and Craven County, “the task of
constructing and maintaining the roads,
such as they' were in the early days, fell
DOT re-routed Highway 70 to accommodate the Palace’s reconstruction in
the 1950s.
to the male taxable* who lived in the
vicinity of the highways.”3
Due to eastern North Carolina’s
swampy nature, travelers often could
only find “narrow paths to travel" and
ultimately hail to hire guides. To make
matters more confusing, “there was
little to distinguish cow paths, Indian
paths and bridle paths from the regular
passages.” !
While numerous bridges were
constructed over waterways, ferries also
were authorized to take advantage of
this quicker mode of transportation,
especially in the New Rem area. At one
time, as many as six ferries crossed the
Neuse River and at least three provided
passage over the Trent River/' However,
just prior to the American Revolution,
most people “preferred to bypass” the
ferries because of inconsistencies in
service and instead used the intracolonial
postal route completed in 1770-1771,
when William Tryon served as the Royal
Governor ol North Carolina.1
New Bern’s central location along the
coast, "the establishment of a substantial
network of roads, complemented by
the necessary bridges and ferries’, and a
“favorable location ar the confluence of
the Neuse and Trent rivers" all combined
to make this small Southern
town a river port during the
later part ol the 18th century
and the early 19th century."
Still, the requirement that
roads be constructed by
taxable males” of the district
ran into problems rime after
time. When county officials
sought to expand the road
system, locals complained
that either enough men
were not available to do the
work or that the proposal
roads were ol little benefit
to them. And the roads that
were in existence remained
in bad shape, as shown in the
experience ol James W. Bryan,
who “traveled seventeen and
a half hours front Wilson to New Bern
in 1854, (and) declared he would rather
‘go from New York to Europe than
from Wilson to New Bern - the fatigue
is not half as great.’ ” Tile county also
met with resistance in keeping bridges
properly maintained.
Thus, this same struggle continued
throughout the 19th century — the
county authorizing the construction of
roads, ferries and bridges yet lacking
the manpower to keep them properly
maintained. Finally in the early 20th
century, the state realized it needed one
central agency to provide consistent
construction and maintenance of roads
throughout the state, and the State
I lighway Commission was created.
In 1941 that department was
expanded to include the Department of
Motor Vehicles, and in 1971 the name
was changed to the North Carolina
Department of Transportation and
Highway Safety. (The term “Highway
Safety" was dropped in 1979 when that
function moved to the Department of
Crime Control and Public Safety.)*
The Palace Reborn
The original Palace burned in 1798,
continued on page H
Sprinc; 2007
ace
