Art: Beautiful Boxes

Not the most beautiful portions of the U. S. are the Carolinas. Apart from the sea islands to the east and the mountains to the west, the bulk of both States is flat, sandy, scrubby, down-at-heel. Yet local pride burns high in Carolinian hearts. The Carolina Motor Club of Charlotte, N. C., active in both States, has as one of its most important subdivisions a Highway Beautification Committee. Taking thought, the C. M. C.’s H. B. C. decided some months ago that the ugliest excrescences on their land’s flat face were the rural rows of raffish, rusty mail boxes propped on old wagon wheels and rotting fence posts. Prize money was assembled. Committees for North and South Carolina were appointed. Literature was rushed to local papers. And the Carolina Motor Club’s Rural Mail Box Improvement Campaign was launched.

To give uncertain farmers an esthetic steer a pamphlet on mailbox beauty was prepared by Director of Highway Beautification Walter J. Cartier. Excerpts:

“Rural letter carriers tell us it is necessary in some seasons of the year to carry a shovel with them in order to reach these boxes. In planting vines it is well to use materials which do not have thorns. Your letter carrier will not appreciate having to deliver mail and dodge thorns. . . .

”We invite every owner of a rural or suburban mailbox to enter this contest. Five dollars in cash will be given in North Carolina and the same amount in South Carolina.”

Mailbox beautification swept the Carolinas. The North Carolina prize committee, chairmanned by Author Struthers Burt (The Diary of a Dude Wrangler, Festival), pondered results from Currituck Sound to Cherokee County while Mrs. James R. Cain and her fellow South Carolinians were doing likewise from Caesar’s Head to Hiltonhead. Last week brought the great day when the winners were announced.

North Carolina’s $5 went to B. B. Britt of Garner. Before the contest Mr. Britt’s mailbox was propped on a fence rail between tin signs advertising Coca-Cola and a tonic known as DR. PEPPER (“Good for Life”). Eager to win, Beautifier Britt took down these signs, cleared away assorted lengths of rusting barbed wire, old tomato cans, broken peach baskets, bits of kindling, corn stalks. Then he bowered his mailbox in flowering vines, shrubs, sun flowers, and a border of sweet alyssum. With beauty in his heart he also built a dove cote by the woodshed.

South Carolina’s $5 went to J. E. Groce of Lyman. More stark, more virile in conception, Mr. Groce buried his mailbox deep in a towering mass of concrete and pebbles, bent a rambler rose over it and planted ivy at its base.

There were also $1 prizes for Lula Williams at Autryville, N. C. who moved her mailbox to an oak tree and planted petunias around it, and for Mrs. Z. I. McBane of Graham, N. C. who put her mailbox into what looked like an outhouse on stilts.