Boys Road Patrol

The Boys Road Patrol was chartered by the General Assembly in 1915 under the aegis of J. Hampton Rich "to look after the maintenance of the stretch of road indigenous to each member of the patrol, dragging and ditching same by the use of machinery placed in the care of the patrol by the State and county." For ten years the program fell under the Department of Agriculture, but in 1925 it was transferred to the State Board of Education. It apparently was most active in Forsyth and Davie Counties, where Rich personally directed the work. Before paved roads, the patrol, with the slogan "A Boy on Every Mile," helped keep country roads dragged and drained. A simple road drag formed the patrol's seal. With the advent of improved roads in the 1930s, the organization (in essence, Rich himself) preached traffic and pedestrian safety.

Additional Resources:

Public laws and resolutions of the State of North Carolina passed by the General Assembly at its session of...[1915], North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Digital Collections: https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/public-laws-and-resolutions-of-the-state-of-north-carolina-passed-by-the-general-assembly-at-its-session-of-...1915/1956429?item=2119981

Journal of the Senate of the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina 1915, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Digital Collections: https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/journal-of-the-senate-of-the-general-assembly-of-the-state-of-north-carolina-at-its-1915-session/3881631

Public laws and resolutions passed by the General Assembly at its session of...[1925], North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Digital Collections: https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/public-laws-and-resolutions-passed-by-the-general-assembly-at-its-session-of-...1925/1952776

H. G. Jones, Caitlin D. Jones. Scoundrels, Rogues and Heroes of the Old North State.

Consolidated statutes of North Carolina, prepared under Public laws 1917...  By North Carolina, Harry W. Stubbs, North Carolina. Legislative Revision Commission.

Image Credit:

"On the eYonahlossee road, May 11, 1910. Frank W. Bicknell Photograph Collection, PhC.8, North Carolina State Archives, call #:  PhC8_307, Raleigh, NC." Available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/north-carolina-state-archives/2744978260/ (accessed August 2, 2012).