J. Cole is from Fayetteville.
That’s not exactly breaking news. The Grammy-winning Terry Sanford High School graduate has certainly helped put his hometown on the map.
And Cole is far from the only celebrity to hail from the All American City. Academy Award-nominated actor Brian Tyree Henry; Academy Award-nominated actress Elizabeth McRae; Tony Award winner J. Harrison Ghee; and Tony Award nominee NaTasha Yvette Williams all have Fayetteville ties.
And of course, we’re known for our connection to the Marquis de Lafayette. While many American cities bear the French general’s name, we’re the only namesake he actually visited.
Don’t forget Fort Bragg: An internet search for “what is Fayetteville known for” will show the nation’s most populated U.S. military installation as the top result.
But Fayetteville also has ties to significant people, events and brands that many may not expect. Those connections range from the Harlem Renaissance to a real-life figure who inspired a character in a beloved film, a president’s family and a “king.”
Bob Hope once (sort of) celebrated his birthday here
What do you get when you gather together Kirk Cameron, Phyllis Diller, Emmanuel Lewis, Lucille Ball and President Ronald Reagan?
A setup for a joke? Perhaps. A strange photo? Absolutely.
But it really happened, and Bob Hope was the reason for the celebration. He taped his 1988 birthday TV special on Pope Air Force Base over the course of several days in May 1987
Brooke Shields, Phylicia Rashad, Alabama, Glen Campbell, Barbara Mandell and Don Johnson were also on hand.
And the man himself had the jokes:
“During the taping, Hope couldn’t resist poking fun at Fayetteville on national television,” the Observer reported. “He called Bragg Boulevard both ‘a wonderland of Epicurean delights’ and ‘a burying ground for the Dukes of Hazzard.’ As for the plethora of pawn shops, he jabbed, ‘The motto at Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base is ‘If it doesn’t move, hock it.'”
The Elvis show that never was
Cumberland County was excited to welcome Elvis Presley back to the Crown on Aug. 25, 1977.
Just the year before, the man known as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll had performed three sold-out shows from Aug. 3-5, 1976, at what was then called the Cumberland County Memorial Auditorium and is now the Crown Arena.
Fans lined up to buy tickets to the Aug. 25, 1977, show. But just nine days before Elvis would take the stage here, he died, on Aug. 16, 1977, at age 42.
National chains got their start here
What do buffet restaurant Golden Corral and mini-golf center Putt Putt have in common?
Both nationally recognized chains got their start right here in Fayetteville.
Putt-Putt
Putt Putt was founded by Fayetteville insurance salesman Don Clayton, who opened the miniature golf course on June 21, 1954, at Bragg Boulevard and Fort Bragg Road.
“Clayton founded Putt-Putt … after stress from his job selling insurance pushed him close to a nervous breakdown,” the Observer reported in Clayton’s April 18, 1996, obituary. “A doctor told him to take 30 days off. He was 28 years old.”
Clayton played miniature golf with his dad during that sabbatical, and at the end of it, he and his father spent $5,200 to build the first Putt Putt course on Fort Bragg Road.
“Clayton was going to call it Shady Vale Miniature Golf, but when he went to the bank to open a checking account for the business, he wasn’t sure how to spell `vale,'” the 1996 story said. “He decided on Putt-Putt.”
It was so popular that by the next year, seven more Putt-Putts were built. The number of Putt-Putts has decreased significantly since their heyday, but they’re still around — including a location in Fayetteville on Bragg Boulevard.
Golden Corral
A little less than 20 years after Clayton founded Putt-Putt, Fayetteville became home to the first-ever Golden Corral. The two Raleigh businessmen who opened Golden Corral chose the city specifically because they believed it would be ideal for their first restaurant.
It started as an entree-based menu but eventually transitioned to a buffet model in the late 1980s. There are now hundreds of Golden Corrals across the country.
The 5,000-square-foot Fayetteville restaurant opened Jan. 3, 1973, at 1414 Bragg Blvd. It closed in 1994, but the location on Skibo Road in Cross Creek Plaza, which opened the same year, still stands.
Langston Hughes
One of the most famous American poets has an interesting connection to Fayetteville through his maternal grandmother.
Mary Patterson, who was born in Fayetteville, married fellow Fayetteville native Lewis Leary, an abolitionist who joined John Brown in the raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Leary was killed in the aftermath of the raid, which is considered one of the events that helped spark the Civil War.
Mary Leary eventually married Charles Henry Langston, one of Leary’s friends and an abolitionist himself. With Langston, she had two children, one of whom, Carrie Langston, would one day give birth to the leader of the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes. Hughes was mostly raised by his grandmother, and he is said to have grown up hearing stories about her first husband’s fight against slavery.
Fayetteville in fiction
Was Charles Chesnutt the J. Cole of the late 19th century? He was an educator and a writer, not a musician, but he was a celebrated and well-known author whose work remains in print. He’s considered one of the country’s first notable Black authors.
Chesnutt’s novel “The House Behind the Cedars,” which was published in 1900, is set in the town of Patesville. It’s believed that the town was a fictionalized version of Fayetteville. Chesnutt even refers to a “market-house” with a “four-faced clock” — just like the real Market House in downtown Fayetteville.
An American classic is brought to life
The literary connections keep on coming.
Author Carson McCullers wasn’t from Fayetteville — she was a Georgia native — but she completed a novel widely considered one of the greatest of the last century while she was in the city, brought here by her husband’s job as a credit investigator.
McCullers finished her debut novel, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” while living in an apartment at the Cool Spring Tavern downtown. And before leaving Fayetteville in 1940, she had written the novella “Reflections in a Golden Eye,” set on an Army post in the South, and had started writing what is perhaps her most famous novel, “The Member of the Wedding.”
Where a man became a babe and started a legend
The man known as George Herman Ruth Jr. arrived in Fayetteville in March 1914 as a newly minted pro baseball player. By the time he left, he had hit the first home run of his legendary professional baseball career and picked up his famous nickname: Babe.
Ruth, who had two weeks earlier signed with the then-minor league Baltimore Orioles, hit a home run in his second time at bat during an intersquad exhibition March 7 at the Cape Fear Fairgrounds. A state historical marker at Gillespie Street and Southern Avenue commemorates the event, which is acknowledged by the Baseball Hall of Fame and Ruth himself.
The origins of his nickname are a bit murkier, with accounts varying. What we do know is that Ruth was likely christened “Babe” during his time here because by the end of his month-long visit to Fayetteville, Baltimore papers had begun referring to him as Babe Ruth.
Field of Dreams
Babe Ruth isn’t the only baseball legend with a Fayetteville connection.
“Field of Dreams” is undoubtedly one of the most well-known and beloved movies about America’s pastime. The 1989 movie stars Kevin Costner as an Iowa corn farmer who hears a mysterious voice imploring him, “If you build it, they will come.” One of the players who magically returns to play in the field is Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, portrayed by Oscar-winning actor Burt Lancaster.
Graham was born in Fayetteville.
Graham’s lone major‑league appearance — in a 1905 game for the New York Giants in which he never recorded an at‑bat — became a key moment in the movie.
A presidential family
A presidential visit is not at all uncommon in Fayetteville. Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Donald Trump, and most of the commanders in chief in between, have visited the city or Fort Bragg.
But one president had family ties to the area.
Former President Jimmy Carter’s sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, lived in Fayetteville and later in Hope Mills, where she remained until she died in 1983. She moved to Fayetteville in 1949 with her husband, Bob Stapleton, after he joined his cousin’s veterinary practice, the still‑operating Cape Fear Animal Hospital
Like any good brother, Carter visited his sibling on a number of occasions over the years. While he was president, he stayed with his sister in her family’s Devane Street house for his nephew’s wedding. And he attended the wedding at Highland Presbyterian Church.
A winter home with a ‘rich’ history
A name synonymous with wealth in America, the Rockefellers became enormously rich with the founding of Standard Oil, and one of the family members later established a sprawling private estate just outside Fayetteville.
James Stillman Rockefeller, the grandson and great-nephew of the founders of Standard Oil, bought Long Valley Farm in northern Cumberland County in 1937. The 6,000-square-foot house, which was completed in 1938, proved to be a convenient location for Rockefeller when he was stationed at Fort Bragg as a lieutenant colonel during World War II. No one has lived in the house since Rockefeller died at 102 in August 2004.
Rockefeller bequeathed the land to the Nature Conservancy, which later deeded it to the state for what is now Carver’s Creek State Park. The house is still there, and you can still tour it.
Fayetteville has a good rap
Quick. What’s the first rap record? Did you say “Rapper’s Delight”?
Well, that’s wrong. The correct answer is “King Tim III (Personality Jock)” by Bill Curtis and the Fatback Band.
Fayetteville native Curtis and his band beat the Sugarhill Gang to the punch: “Kim Tim III” was released as the B-side to “You’re My Candy Sweet” on March 25, 1979. “Rapper’s Delight” wasn’t released until Sept. 16, 1979.
That time an Oscar-winning actress protested in Fayetteville
Hollywood royalty Jane Fonda was well-known for her opposition to the Vietnam War.
In May 1970, she came to the Fayetteville area, where she led other demonstrators onto Fort Bragg and attempted to hand out anti-war leaflets. They were escorted off post, but later that day, Fonda joined about 2,000 protesters at Rowan Park to rally against the Vietnam War.
That wasn’t the only time the actress protested U.S. action in Vietnam.
On March 13, 1971, Fonda returned to the area with a group of actors that included Donald Sutherland to stage a performance billed as an alternative to Bob Hope’s USO show. The Army refused to allow the production on Fort Bragg, and organizers were also denied use of the Cumberland County Memorial Auditorium. Instead, the play was staged at Haymarket Square Coffee House on Hay Street.
News Director Beth Hutson can be reached at [email protected].
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.fayobserver.com ’
