A new opportunity to support the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program will help repair or replace damaged historical highway markers.
The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program has partnered with the non-profit North Carolina Literary and Historical Association to establish a historical marker maintenance endowment fund.
For more than 85 years, the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program has erected markers along the state’s roads to mark locations of events and people of statewide historical significance. When markers are damaged by collisions or weather, the cost to repair them can be high. In fact, in recent years the marker program has spent on average one-third to one-half of its available annual budget on these kinds of maintenance needs.
Three historical highway markers soon will be repaired or replaced with money from the fund, including a marker for Ella Baker in Halifax County, one for Torhunta in Wayne County and one about Squire and Sarah Boone in Davie County.
The maintenance endowment campaign will allow the public to make financial contributions to support the maintenance or repair of existing highway historical markers. These donations will not support or influence the selection of new highway markers. Donations are made directly to the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, which will hold the maintenance endowment fund.
The first fund-raising effort will be a targeted-giving campaign that will run for the month of April. The total needed for the three markers is $4,920. Any donations collected over $4,920 will be deposited into the general maintenance endowment to help with needs for other damaged or missing markers.
Visit the association’s website at www.ncdcr.gov/HistoricalMarkerEndowment to contribute.
For more information email Ansley Wegner at ansley.wegner@ncdcr.gov.