News
Email
Print
Wade Brown, who helped transform Boone, dies at 101
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: March 11, 2009
BOONE
Wade Brown, an attorney, former Boone mayor and past member of both the N.C. House and Senate, died Monday and will be buried in a private family graveside service in Blowing Rock today.
He was 101.
Brown contributed to much of the 20th-century history of Boone and was witness to more. As a child, he remembered seeing mountain doctors overwhelmed by the 1918 flu epidemic as they were in more populated places.
As a young attorney, he stepped out of his Boone law office during the great 1940 flood and saw waters washing up big sections of pavement.
Brown would write a highly regarded local history titled Recollections and Reflections, which was released in 1997.
He graduated from Wake Forest College and its law school, then opened a law practice in 1931 and worked for more than 60 years. He founded the Boone Golf Course, and helped start the hospital that would grow into Watauga Medical Center. He was commissioned as an officer in the Navy during World War II when he was 37.
He served as mayor of Boone from 1961 to 1967; served as a deacon and Sunday school teacher for decades at First Baptist Church; established a scholarship in his name at Wake Forest University School of Law; was named a trustee emeritus of Wake Forest University; and traveled on overseas goodwill and mission trips even into his 90s.
Stacy Eggers Jr., 84, who still practices law in Boone, remembers when he and Brown were among just four lawyers in Watauga County. There are about 20 times that many now.
Eggers was a young boy when he saw Brown drive his Model T into Boone from Blowing Rock. Brown would drain the water from the car radiator so it wouldn't freeze. When he left, he'd add the water back, then start rolling down Depot Street to start the engine.
Brown was one of those people who helped transform the area from a place that went to sleep in the winter to one that thrives year-round with skiing and tourism.
He was one of three people to sign the charter to establish the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce. While establishing the golf course in 1959 gave him a place to play the game he loved, he also believed that it would help bring tourist dollars.
Wade Wilmoth, a two-term mayor of Boone in the late 1970s, said that when he was ready to begin his first run for mayor, he sought out Brown and told him of his plans.
"He said, ‘Young man, there's a lot of problems in being mayor of a mountain town,'" Wilmoth said. "He went on to be kind of discouraging. I said, ‘Well, if you were 39 years old, what would you do?' He jumped up out of his chair and said, ‘I'd run, I'd run.'"
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
Email
Print
