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<br /> NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approval No.1024-0018
<br /> (8-86)
<br /> United States Department of the Interior
<br /> National Park Service
<br /> National Register of Historic Places
<br /> Continuation Sheet
<br /> Section number 8 Page 15 North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls
<br /> Orange County,NC
<br /> farm comprised about twenty acres of hay, corn,peas, sweet potatoes, vegetables. Equipment included
<br /> tools,plows, a wagon, a mowing machine, and a mule harness. A small barn and a corn crib were in
<br /> good condition,but the livestock was not. The sole cow had recently died,the hog and four pigs were
<br /> thin, and one mule was crippled and the other difficult to handle. Only a few chickens remained. Due
<br /> to these conditions, and the fact that the institution provided inadequate care and rehabilitation, Grier
<br /> concluded that the facility was completely ineffective in its mission. He recommended that the
<br /> NCFCWC board either increase funding enough to remedy the situation or close the reformatory.31
<br /> The institution persevered. In January 1938, Lula Henderson reported on successful work placements
<br /> for former residents in Mebane and Greensboro,North Carolina; Washington, D. C.; and Seneca,
<br /> South Carolina. Community members and churches contributed to the campus's operational costs.
<br /> Patrons supplied clothing, shoes, hats, soap, towels, candy, canned goods, apples, and fabric and
<br /> notions for dressmaking. However, donations were not sufficient to suitably maintain the facility or to
<br /> provide basic necessities for its residents. After University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill field work
<br /> director George H. Lawrence visited in April, he reported to NCSBCPW director J. Wallace Nygard
<br /> that the reformatory conditions were so appalling that"the place is worse than useless." He suggested
<br /> that the girls would be better served in a county jail,where they would at least receive adequate
<br /> sustenance. NCSBCPW Division of Negro Work director William R. Johnson met with NCFCWC
<br /> board members, and in October 1938 they decided to cease operations in five months. Between
<br /> October 1925 and the reformatory's March 15, 1939 closure,the institution housed more than two
<br /> hundred girls. While commendable,the reformatory was able to serve of only a small fraction of the
<br /> 3,839 African American girls under the age of sixteen whose cases came before juvenile courts during
<br /> the 1920s and 1930s.32
<br /> The use of the Efland property from 1939 through the 1950s is unknown. It is likely that NCIHCG
<br /> leased the cottage to a series of tenants and the acreage to the lessees or local farmers. A 1955 U. S.
<br /> Department of Agriculture aerial photograph indicates that fields were still being cultivated during that
<br /> period.33 NCIHCG trustees sold the Efland property to W. G. Fields Jr. and his wife Nannette,
<br /> investors who remained Chapel Hill residents, on April 29, 1957. The Fields subdivided a portion of
<br /> the land west of the cottage to create eight tracts spanning the distance between Redman Crossing and
<br /> Interstate 40. Each parcel encompassed between four-and-one-half and twelve acres. Edwards Realty
<br /> Company acquired the twelve-acre tract No. 1,which included the cottage, on November 17, 1958 and
<br /> conveyed it to Mack and Lina Lee Stout on September 22, 1959. They sold the cottage and 2.4
<br /> 31 W C.Ezell and T.L.Grier,"The North Carolina Home for Colored Girls,Efland,NC,"site visit report,July 2,
<br /> 1937,NCSBPWI,Box 163.
<br /> 32"The Efland Home," Carolina Times,February 4, 1939;Undated overview of NCIHCG funding history,"The
<br /> Need for a State Training School for Delinquent Negro Girls,"and"Annual Reports,North Carolina Industrial Home for
<br /> Colored Girls, 1928 and 1929,"NCSBPWI,Box 163.
<br /> 33 U. S.Depaitment of Agriculture,aerial photograph, 6P-32(1955).
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