The club for boys and girls from southeastern North Carolina has a long and complex history in Wilmington – a newspaper

What is the club for boys and girls from southeastern North Carolina today is formed by two longtime Wilmington clubs for boys: Brigade Club for Boys for White Children dating back to the early 1900 From the 1930s.

Today, the club for boys and girls from southeastern North Carolina have places in Wilmington on Vance, Nixon and South 13, as well as in the Counts Brunswick, Duplin, Onlow and Pennder.

Both clubs have their origin in the care of disadvantaged children from economically marginalized communities.

According to the past, Starnews Reporting, the brigade’s boys club, originally called the Boys Brigade, was founded in the early 1900s by Walker Taylor, who runs an insurance business in Wilmington.

Margaret M. Multirouney’s Book “Competition, Place and Memory: Deep currents in Wilmington, North Carolina,” says Taylor also commanded Wilmington’s light infant .

The most early brigade of boys, who met at the old Presbyterian church of imanuel on the streets of the front and the queen, had a military structure, with the boys having wooden rifles and swords and wore uniforms.

Until 1903, over 100 boys belonged to the club, and in 1904 the construction began on a two -storey building on the second and church streets. When completed, the structure that resembled a castle or fortress contained an audience, a dining room, a gym, a bowling alley and a library.

Membership has jumped to over 500 boys, many of them from the Dry Lake area in downtown Wilmington, which at the time was largely inhabited by the workers’ whites.

In 1929, the organization contacted the clubs of the boys of America and was renamed BRIGADE BOYS’s Club.

In 1950, the club moved to a building of 718 S. Third St., which today owns the new Center for Treatment on the Day of Minor Hanover. The building in the Second and the Church was demolished in 1962, but it is possible that the distinctive structure would inspire a slag castle built on the playground of Empie Park several years later.

In the 1970s, the club expanded to include the facility on Vance Street, which works to this day.

Local memories: Do you remember when this “castle” rises over Wilmington Park?

The Boys Community Club was established in 1937 at the Wiliston Industrial High School by the founders, including Archie Blue, who today has Park Wilmington, named after him. Later, she moved to the streets of Ninth and Nixon, a place that also served as a USO for black troops during World War II. Starnews History of 2009 describes the Nixon Street building as the Center of the African-American Community.

In 1961, Sports Illustrated launched the subject of a 13-year-old member of the Boys Club named Samuel Clemens, who “helped to lead his Wilmington team to a national warding title in national championships to pull the boys’ clubs. “At that time, the club’s director was Walter Bes, who served the club for about three decades.

Later, the club for boys from the community moved to Fanning Street, to the place where the dream facility is today, and merged with the club for boys and girls from Southeast North Carolina after the pandemic.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington Starnews: Boys and Girls Club from Southeastern North Carolina has a long and complex story in Wilmington