What is a Tar Heel?
Any paper or website you read today will tell you that the North Carolina Tar Heels won the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship in impressive fashion last night. What they won’t tell you, however, is why they are called “Tar Heels.” That’s what DinnerTopics.com is for!
According to the Alumni Association of the UNC, even in its earliest days, the state of North Carolina was a large producer of resin-based components, including tar, pitch, and turpentine. In rich demand by the English navy, North Carolina shipped thousands of barrels to England before the American Revolution. 1
Because tar production is an extremely messy process, you can see why North Carolinians have been dubbed “Tar Heels.” There are plenty of stories attempting to attribute the name to a specific person or place, but having played the game “Operator” when I was younger, I have come to realize that a quote taken from someone in battle in the middle of the 19th century is unlikely to have been correctly documented.
Nevertheless, the term “Tar Heels” was first allegedly coined during the Civil War. Read the link below for more.
Read on:
alumni.unc.edu – What’s in a Name? Why We’re All Called Tar Heels
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment