Miles Lyman Clark

Image Source: From AlbermarleSounds website.

Miles Lyman Clark served on the board from 1951 until his resignation just two years later, in 1953. Gov. William Bradley Umstead (1895-1954) then appointed Edwin E. Rawls (1900–1958) from Greenville to serve as Clark’s replacement. Clark had been appointed in 1951 by Gov. W. Kerr Scott (1896–1958), succeeding Claude Phillip Morris (1888–1959) of Hertford. The year Clark was appointed, the state legislature, recognizing East Carolina’s important educational achievements and its rapid coeducational growth in the postwar period, elevated its academic standing to that of a four-year liberal arts college.

Clark was born in Newport News, Va., in 1891, and graduated from Hampton High School and Newport News Academy before beginning undergraduate work in 1909 at North Carolina State College (now, N. C. State University). The same year, his father, Carey C. Clark (1860–1918) had moved his family to Elizabeth City where he began operating two small sawmills. After his freshman year, Clark returned to Elizabeth City to begin work as a salesman/distributor with Texas Oil Company (later, Texaco). In tandem with the automobile revolution of the early- to mid-twentieth century, Clark’s business grew into a major gasoline distribution operation.

Clark remained in Elizabeth City — except for his service during WWI in the U. S. Navy — for the next four decades. Along with his work as regional distributor for Texas Oil in the Albermarle region, he personally purchased and outfitted a fleet of steel tankers transporting gas to his 38 sub-distribution stations. He also built and/or bought 32 local filling stations, and ran nearly 100 gasoline transport trucks, all of which he owned. In 1933, Texas Oil Company bought Clark’s personal holdings for $500,000, reportedly the “biggest deal ever to take place in Elizabeth City.” By the following year, Clark reportedly distributed two million gallons of gasoline a month along the coastal region and inland areas including Murfreesboro, Williamston, and Washington. Clark also acquired considerable interests in local banks in the Albermarle area as well as extensive holdings in the Outer Banks between Hatteras and Buxton. By the time of his appointment as a trustee, Clark was well recognized as one of the wealthiest and most successful businessmen in eastern North Carolina.

During his brief tenure on the board, two significant challenges to East Carolina’s standing as a Jim Crow campus occurred. First, in 1951, the trustees received a request for scholarship funding for Korean students, and responded by appeal to East Carolina’s segregationist charter stating that the school was established for the education of “young white men and women.” No objections to this were recorded. Later, Clark missed the 1952 meeting at which a request from the director of extension services asking that courses offered at Cherry Point Marine Base in Jacksonville be open to African American Marines stationed there. The board again affirmed the segregated status quo by reference to the school’s charter. Clark, like virtually all other board members at the time, had yet to transcend the limits of the still prevalent Jim Crow culture.

Clark’s early resignation from the ECC board was presumably related not to these challenges to Jim Crow so much as his intense involvement in community projects in northeastern North Carolina, ranging from his generous patronage of the Elizabeth City High School Band to his lifelong service as a founding member of the board of directors of the Lost Colony theatrical pageant. Reportedly, Clark attended the show nearly 200 times. He also served as chair of the Kill Devil Hills Memorial Society which, in 1953, the year of his resignation from the East Carolina board, orchestrated a major 50^th anniversary celebration of the Wright Brothers flight at Kill Devil Hills. Prior to the grand 1953 celebration, the KDH Memorial Society organized impressive events annually remembering the Wright Brothers, often featuring the Elizabeth City High School Band. Clark had been involved in efforts to commemorate the first flight date, December 17, 1903, since 1928. He was also active in the Roanoke Island Historical Society and the local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Sources

• Brown, Aycock. “Kill Devil Hills Memorial Group.” Rocky Mount Telegram. February 10, 1952. Sect. D, p. 5.
• Brown, Aycock. “Miles Clark at Celebration.” 1950, 1951. Aycock Brown Papers. Aycock Brown Photographs # AV.5127.6. Outer Banks History Center. North Carolina Digital Collections. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p16062coll51/id/2107/rec/2
• Brown, Aycock. “Plan a Larger Association for KDH Memorial: Unique Celebration Contemplated December 17; Anniversary of First Flight.” Coastland Times. October 26, 1951. P. 1.
• Brown, Aycock. “Spectacular Program for Observance of Anniversary of First Flight Planned.” Coastland Times. December 16, 1955. P. 1.
• “East Carolina College Board of Trustees minutes, May 17, 1952.” University Archives # UA01.01.01.01.04. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N. C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/10264
• “East Carolina College Board of Trustees minutes, November 20, 1951.” University Archives # UA01.01.01.01.04. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N. C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/10266
• “ECC Trustees Named by Governor Scott.” News and Observer. July 14, 1951. P. 16.
• “Flight Anniversary Today.” News and Observer. October 25, 1950. P. 15.
• “Great 4-Day Celebration to Mark Anniversary of First Airplane Flight.” Coastland Times. September 18, 1953. Pp. 1, 4.
• Hardee, Roy. “Wright Flight Event Is Observed in Dare.” News and Observer. December 18, 1965. Pp. 1, 2.
• Meekins, Victor. “He Started with a $20 Junk Boat: And the other day Miles Clark sold his fleet of vessels for half a million dollars.” The State. September 8, 1934. Pp. 7, 22. North Carolina Digital Collections. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p16062coll18/id/3578/rec/1.
• “Miles Clark Buys Mitchell Hedges’ Hatteras Holdings.” [Elizabeth City] Independent. January 28, 1937. P. 1.
• “Miles Clark Dies at 77.” Charlotte Observer. June 1, 1965. P. 8A.
• “Miles Clark Negotiation Sale to the Texas Co. — Deal Will Involve Half Million Dollars.” [Elizabeth City] Independent. December 22, 1933. P. 1.
• “Miles Clark on First & Citizens Natl. Directorate.” [Elizabeth City] Independent. January 15, 1932. P. 1.
• “Miles Clark’s Pride.” [Elizabeth City] Independent. August 23, 1935. P. 3.
• “Miles L. Clark a Bank President at the Age of 42.” [Elizabeth City] Independent. August 26, 1932. P. 2.
• O’Keef, Herbert. “Tar Heel of the Week: Miles Clark.” News and Observer. September 13, 1953. Sect. IV, p. 3.
• “Roanoke Island Plans Big Event: Lost Colony Reopening to be Discussed Saturday at Dare Celebration.” News and Observer. August 16, 1945. P. 5.
• “The Romance of an Elizabeth City Boy Who Cut College and Made Half a Million.” [Elizabeth City] Independent. September 28, 1934. P. 5.

Related Materials

Image Source: News and Observer, September 13, 1953, Sect. IV, p. 3.

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