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THEN & NOW
Cumberland County firsts
1854: Warren Winslow is the first Fayetteville resident to serve as governor of North Carolina. He serves for 25 days.
1873: James Murphy Lamb establishes the first plant nursery in Fayetteville.
1891: George C. Scurlock is appointed by President Benjamin Harrison as the first black postmaster of Fayetteville.
1894: Philadelphia Hoosier "Della" Matthews serves as the first woman superintendent of Fayetteville schools. She may have been the first woman in the state to hold such a position.
1897: Fayetteville native Mary Shackleford MacRae is the first woman to register for admission to the University of North Carolina. Five other women are admitted that year.
1904: Capt. James D. McNeill is the first Fayetteville firefighter to be elected president of the National Firemen's Association.
1908: Fayetteville has its first woman doctor, Irene Thornton, a Fayetteville native and former nurse.
1910: Amelia Shaw Pearce is Fayetteville's first librarian.
1918: Cyrus Adcox is the first Cumberland County soldier to die on the battlefields of Europe during World War I. Robert Porcelli is the first soldier from Fayetteville to be killed.
1919: Col. Maxwell Murray officially becomes the first commander of Camp Bragg.
1920: Fayetteville native Kathrine Robinson Everett is the first woman lawyer in Cumberland County and only the fourth woman licensed to practice law in the state. She is the first woman to argue a case before the N.C. Supreme Court.
1931: Elizabeth McMillan Thompson becomes the first black public health nurse in the county and one of the first in the state.
1932: Fayetteville native Frank P. Graham becomes the first president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina.
1933: Steve Fasul is the first to apply for a beer license in Fayetteville after North Carolina legalizes beer.
1938: William C. Fields of Cumberland County becomes the first person to receive a fine arts degree from UNC-Chapel Hill.
1947: Vivian White is the first Miss Fayetteville to win the title of Miss North Carolina.
1949: Nurse Edith B. Chance opens Whispering Pines Convalescent Nursing Home, the first nursing home in Fayetteville and in the Southeast.
1949: Fayetteville hires its first two black policemen, Lonnie Truitt and Algie A. Banks.
1950: Robert H. Butler is named the first solicitor of Recorders Court.
1950: Edna S. Fuller is the founder of the first school for exceptional children in Fayetteville.
1951: Grady Howard is the first mayor of Spring Lake.
1952: Ava Ray Monroe is the first person admitted to the newly built Cape Fear Valley Hospital.
1953: Fayetteville lawyer and historian John A. Oates receives the North Carolina Society of County and Local Historians' first Smithwick Award for outstanding local historical writing for his book, "The Story of Fayetteville and the Upper Cape Fear."
1954: Don Clayton opens the first Putt-Putt miniature golf course in Fayetteville.
1960: Lawyer Terry Sanford is the first elected governor from Fayetteville.
1960: Lawyer Joe Tally Jr. is the first Fayetteville native to be installed as head of Kiwanis International.
1962: Sylvia X. Allen is the first black woman to graduate from the University of North Carolina's Law School.
1962: T.F. Thurman opens the South's first coin-operated eating establishment in Spring Lake.
1963: Mary R. Pohlmann becomes the first white student to enroll at Fayetteville State College in its 86-year history.
1964: Guy Beattie receives the first degree from Methodist College.
1971: Tommy Pleasant is the first of 20 people under 21 to register to vote in Cumberland County after the Supreme Court ruled that the reduction of the voting age to 18 was constitutional.
1972: Carter L. Twine is named Cumberland County's first county manager.
1972: Herbert W. Vick becomes the first black doctor to serve as chief of staff at Cape Fear Valley Hospital.
1973: Beth Finch becomes the first woman elected to the Fayetteville City Council.
1973: Lura S. Tally is the first Cumberland County woman elected to the state General Assembly.
1975: June Ritchey is the first woman elected to the Hope Mills Board of Commissioners.
1975: Marvin Lucas is the first black member of the Spring Lake Board of Aldermen.
1978: Virginia Thompson is the first woman appointed to the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners. In 1985, she becomes the first woman elected president of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners and the first from Cumberland County to lead that organization.
1979: Evelyn Q. Parker is sworn in as Spring Lake's first woman mayor.
1982: Elizabeth Keever is the first woman selected as a District Court judge in the county.
1982: Minnie Annette Bryant is awarded the first master's degree from Fayetteville State University.
1987: Cheryl Stearns of Fayetteville, a former skydiver for the Army Golden Knights, sets an endurance record after making 255 jumps in 24 hours - an average of one jump every 5 1/2 minutes. The Piedmont Airlines pilot is the first woman to jump consecutively for 24 hours.
1990: Public Defender Mary Ann Tally of Fayetteville is elected president of the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers. She is the first woman president, the first public defender to be president and the first president from Fayetteville since the academy was established in 1962.
1992: Douglas Byrd High School graduate Brad Edwards becomes the first football player from Fayetteville to start in a Super Bowl game.
1993: John R. Griffin becomes the first black superintendent of the county schools.
1996: Mia Morris is the first Republican woman to be elected to the state House from Cumberland County.
2000: Mary Elskamp is the first woman fire chief in Cumberland County.
2001: Linda Priest is the first woman to serve as the county clerk of court.
2003: Dr. T.J. Bryan is the first woman to be named chancellor of Fayetteville State University and the first black woman to lead a UNC system institution.
2003: Luis John Olivera, a lawyer in the county District Attorney's Office, is the first Hispanic to be appointed to a seat on the PWC board.
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