Etta Lucille Reid Baker (1913-2006) was born in North Carolina to a family of African-American, Native American, and European-American heritage. From a young age, her father, Boone Reid, a musician who played the Piedmont blues, taught her to play the guitar and the Piedmont blues style. Baker worked several jobs since she was a teenager, contributing to the family’s income and occasionally playing with her father and sister at dances and parties. In the summer of 1956, when Baker lived in Morganton, North Carolina, married, and had nine children, her father asked the folksinger Paul Clayton to listen to her music. Clayton recorded five pieces of Baker and included them in the 1956 album Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians. It was one of the first commercially released recordings of African-American banjo music. Only in 1973, after several years of being a widow, Baker retired from the textile industry to focus on music. In 1991, she released her first album, One Dime Blues, followed by three more; the last one, an all-banjo instrumental recording, was released posthumously. Until her 90th birthday, Baker performed in folk festivals and concerts nationwide, spreading the Piedmont blues, influencing many musicians, and winning prestigious awards. Several years after her death, the people of Morganton decided to commemorate Baker’s legacy. In 2015, the Etta Baker exhibit opened in the local auditorium. Two years later, on May 25th, a sited statue of Baker by the sculptor Thomas Jay Warren was unveiled outside the Morganton Municipal Auditorium, immortalizing Baker playing her guitar. Read more...

Outside the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences along Jones Street stands the Rachel Carson Sculpture and Wildlife Garden Celebrating a Sense of Wonder. Rachel Carson was a writer, marine biologist, and conservationist. She (1907-1964) grew up on a farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania. She loved the outdoors and started writing and publishing stories when she was 10. At college, Carson initially majored in English but soon discovered the field of Biology and switched. She continued studying zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins in 1929. Five years later, Carson had to leave her Ph.D. studies to work and support her family. In 1935 she started working for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, writing educational literature about marine life. In 1941, Carson incorporated her writings into the book titled Under the Sea Wind. She got promoted within the Bureau, overseeing a small writing staff by 1945, and in 1949 became chief editor of publications, allowing her the freedom to conduct fieldwork, research, and write. In 1951, she published the book that made her famous, The Sea Around Us. Following the book’s success, she became a full-time writer. After several years researching the impact of chemicals on the ecosystem, in 1962, she stood fearless against the chemical industry and its lobbyists publishing her research in the book Silent Spring. The book brought to the public attention the environmental damage attributed to synthetic pesticides, mainly DDT, and sparked the environmental movement, which led to reforms in the usage of synthetic pesticides. After a long battle with breast cancer, Carson died at age 56. The artist Douglas Alvord created the sculpture, and it was dedicated on May 9th, 2002. The bronze sculpture depicts Carson with a boy and a girl inside a small pool surrounded by plants. On her right palm, she holds a turtle while speaking to the children. A nearby plaque provides details about the statue and enlists all the people and organizations that had sponsored it. The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is the largest nature and science museum in the Southeastern United States and the most visited museum in North Carolina. It offers many different exhibits and educational programs for all age groups. Read more...

A larger-than-life bronze statue of the legendary jazz singer, the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone (1933-2003), stands in a park bearing her name in her hometown, Tryon, NC. She sits majestically on a stool, playing the piano, and performing. Simone was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, NC. She was a musically gifted child, teaching herself to play the piano when she was three. Her childhood aspiration was to become a classical pianist but ended up playing and singing her own style- a combination of classic, jazz, gospel, blues, pop, and folk. She created 40 original albums and was a talented songwriter and a civil rights activist. Crys Armbrust established the Nina Simone Memorial Project to celebrate Simone’s legacy, where it all started, in her hometown. The sculptor, Zenos Frudakis, got the commission to create Simone’s statue with the help of her daughter, a musician and Broadway actress, Lisa Simone Kelly, who posed for the sculpture. It was dedicated on Simone’s birthday, February 21st, 2010, seven years after she passed away. The project also installed a marker at her childhood house, 30 East Livingston Street, and plans to restore it. Tryon is an artsy town, home to several galleries, the Tryon History Museum, art centers, and annual festivals. Read more...

A statue honoring Queen Elizabeth I – the first British colonist in the new world and one of the most powerful women of all time. Located at the heart of Elizabethan Gardens – the site where the original settlers established the first colony in America. The 9 feet tall bronze statue is the world’s largest statue of the queen. Created by Jon Hair and was dedicated on May 13th, 2004. It depicts the queen standing tall, wearing her majestic laced gown, holding traditional English flowers. The Elizabethan Gardens, opened in 1960, was an initiative of the Garden Club of North Carolina – a non-profit organization comprising more than 15,000 women. Their mission was to create a cultural attraction to enhance the significance of this historic site, where the first British colonialists settled in the new world. Read more...