By Jim Buchanan
Independence Day has rolled around again, and along with hot dogs on the grill it’s a holiday most of us associate with fireworks.
Such was not always the case.
Mind you, the rocket’s red glare has been a Fourth of July fixture since the nation was founded, but when it came to the snap of firecrackers another holiday stood premiere here in the mountains and across the South: Christmas.
Thus, when fireworks were banned in Jackson County in 1940, the Jackson County Journal opined thusly:
“There will be no fireworks, cap pistols, Roman candles, skyrockets or any other fireworks fired or sold in Jackson County this Christmas, unless it is done in violation of the law. A Christmas without firecrackers may not seem like Christmas in the South; nevertheless it is part of the law. The prohibition of fireworks in this county was first enacted in 1929. In 1933 Dan Tompkins, having once been a boy himself, and knowing the delight that Southern boys have in shooting firecrackers at Christmas, introduced a bill repealing the firecracker prohibition and the act was removed from the statute books. In 1937 the bill was reenacted and still stands on the law books, applicable to Buncombe, Haywood, Jackson and some other counties of the state. The law says ‘it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to sell or offer sale, shoot, fire, discharge, display, or otherwise use or have possession of any firecrackers, torpedoes, cap pistols, sky rockets, Roman candles, or other articles commonly known as fireworks in the County of Jackson.’ It may seem strange to the large number of Yankees now among us that a Southern Christmas is celebrated without fireworks.”
Tompkins and Gertrude Dills McKee, the first woman elected to the N.C. Senate, were instrumental in what might be called the firecracker wars of the 1930s and 40s. Tompkins, the Journal editor who served several terms in the General Assembly, was a firecracker fan. McKee was not, and was instrumental in them being banned in Jackson.
Tompkins’ fondness for Christmas fireworks likely sprang from the mountain practice of riding on horseback discharging firearms as part of the holiday revelry.
In most other parts of the country, the Fourth was the high holy day for fireworks. It was an enthusiasm that got out of hand in alarming fashion.
A 2018 Library of Congress blog post by Malea Walker recounted the mayhem caused by firecrackers, toy guns and bonfires celebrating Independence Day.
“Small boys set off random bonfires that ignited the neighbors’ houses. A Fourth of July firecracker in 1866 started the Great Portland Fire in Maine. The conflagration, the worst ever in the United States, burned 1,800 buildings, left 10,000 homeless and killed two. Five years later, the Great Chicago Fire eclipsed the Portland fire. Toy guns caused even more trouble. Children used them to shoot blank cartridges, which pierced the skin. The lesions resulted in tetanus, the leading cause of Independence Day-related deaths. The American Medical Association began collecting data on the issue. It documented more than 1,500 deaths and more than 33,000 injuries connected to the holiday from 1903 to 1910, according to news reports of the time.”
Around the country campaigns began for a “Safe and Sane Fourth.” An article from the Richmond Dispatch of 1910 stated, “If the grim stare from the sixty-eight eye-sockets made empty by last year’s celebration does not appeal to authorities unwilling to enroll under the ‘safe and sane’ banner let them go to the nearest cemetery and count a thousand little mounds of sod and then half as many again and still more.”
In North Carolina in 1926 Insurance Commissioner Stacy W. Wade sent an appeal to mayors and sheriffs to enforce ordinances forbidding sales of pyrotechnics, noting “In many cases, however, the ordinances are practically nullified by county authorities issuing licenses for the sale of fireworks just outside the city limits. There is nothing patriotic in endangering the lives and property of other people.”
North Carolina’s initial fireworks bans were piecemeal affairs; McKee’s 1935 measure banned fireworks in Jackson but they remained legal in a number of counties including Graham, Cherokee and Macon here in the west.
In 1947 the bans became statewide, with the Herald reporting “No firecrackers can be legally used in Jackson County, nor the state of North Carolina, this year and law enforcement officers call attention to the law which became effective last July 1 that fire crackers cannot be manufactured, purchased, sold or dealt in, transported, possessed, received, advertised, or used in anyway in North Carolina, except for special occasions for public celebrations, carnivals, etc., where they are to be handled only by an experienced person. A violation is a misdemeanor, with the fine or imprisonment or both left to the discretion of the court. Judgment must be passed by the superior court if a person is found guilty.”
The Sanford newspaper opined in a December editorial that the ban was wise, as firecrackers made Santa’s reindeer jumpy.
