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Town of Whittier Is Abolished By Assembly Bill

  • wcu_travel-151.jp2
  • An article titled 'Town of Whittier Is Abolished By Assembly Bill'� appeared in the January 31, 1933, issue of 'The Ruralite' (Sylva, N.C.). An article in the January 19, 1933, issue of a separate newspaper, the 'Jackson County Journal'� (Sylva, N.C.), indicated that the 'introduction of this bill came as a result of a petition presented by the citizens of Whittier, which was reported to have been signed by all except one citizen of the town.'� Later that month, on January 26, the North Carolina General Assembly passed an act to repeal the town's 1907 charter. Whittier is located in both Jackson and Swain Counties in North Carolina. The comment in the 'Ruralite'� article about Col. Raymond Robins refers to a prominent prohibitionist who suddenly and mysteriously disappeared in 1932. Robins was a national figure who had made an appointment to meet with President Herbert Hoover in early September 1932. Instead, he disappeared and a nation-wide investigation began into his whereabouts. Finally, in mid-November, Carl Byrd Fisher, a 13-year-old boy in Whittier, N.C., recognized Robins from a picture in the Grit, a nationally distributed newspaper with a strong following in rural areas of the country. Robins arrived in Whittier by bus from Asheville, N.C., and spent considerable time hiking in the surrounding forests. After he was identified and taken to a medical facility, speculation on his disappearance centered on amnesia.