Carthage unveiled their third, and latest, addition to the Mural Trail Thursday. “When Tobacco was King” is painted on the Luke Marion Building at 104 North McNeil Street and looks back at how tobacco and tobacco growers put North Carolina on the map during the 1900’s.
Artist Scott Nurkin, who is responsible for all three murals in Carthage, recreates a bygone era when tobacco farming was “a way of life”. Tobacco farms paid for first cars, school clothes, and funded college educations.
The committee in charge of the Mural Trail is currently hard at work on a fourth mural but no details are currently available.
Carthage Mayor Lee McGraw reflected at the unveiling event on the importance of the murals to Carthage and to him personally.
Article and photographs by Chris Prentice/Sandhills Sentinel.
