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Miami Herald
10-07-2025
- Miami Herald
Mystery surrounds inmate's 11th and final escape 95 years ago, NC historians say
Mystery surrounds an inmate's escape nearly 100 years after he broke free from a North Carolina prison, historians said. 'On July 10, 1930, Otto Wood made his final escape from Central Prison,' the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources wrote in a blog post. 'To this day, no one knows how he did it.' Wood, accused of murder and other crimes, was a 'serial prison escapee' before his death at age 35, historians said. Here's what we know on the 95-year anniversary of his 11th and final stay behind bars. The start to a 'life of crime' Wood was born in 1895 in Wilkes County, west of Winston-Salem. He reportedly ran away to West Virginia at age 7, starting his 'life of crime.' As a teenager, he was accused of stealing a bicycle and breaking into a hardware store, according to a state encyclopedia called NCpedia. 'Involved in criminal activity from an early age, Wood learned to gamble, fight, and make bootleg whiskey from his famed McCoy-Hatfield relations in West Virginia,' East Carolina University wrote on its website. Over time, Wood came to be considered a 'legend' due to his alleged crimes and escapes. The exploits were even more intriguing given he 'had a lame foot and lost a hand in a hunting accident as a teenager,' according to the N.C. Arts Council and state historians. One time in Tennessee, he reportedly left a prison yard in a box. He was chased by bloodhounds, 'knocked out a 250-pound guard' and then posed as someone joining the search, according to NCpedia. The final prison escape At the time of his final escape from Central Prison in Raleigh, he was serving 30 years for the killing of A.W. Kaplan. The man, a Greensboro pawnbroker, reportedly wouldn't give a watch back to Wood before he was shot to death. 'From 1923, when he began his sentence for murder, he escaped about once per year until, in 1926, he was placed in solitary confinement,' state historians wrote. 'Wood's autobiography convinced many of his sympathizers that he was a reformed man. Removed from solitary, he escaped again.' Wood became known across the country as his cases received news coverage. Despite Wood being accused of killing Kaplan, some Western North Carolina residents adored him. 'In a time of severe economic hardship, he was a Robin Hood character, a generous man who robbed only the rich and was kind to all who remembered him,' the arts council wrote on its website. But it turns out, 'his notoriety was his undoing.' Wood escaped from Central Prison for the final time in 1930, starting a six-month period on the run, state officials said. 'He was finally recognized by Salisbury police as he walked through town on December 31,' historians wrote. 'In a bold move, Wood drew a gun on the officers and got into their car, demanding that they drive out of town. When the officers drew their guns, a shootout ensued and Otto Wood was killed on the street.' After the shooting, people in Salisbury — a roughly 45-mile drive northeast from Charlotte — collected money so his body could be buried in West Virginia. Two songs were made about Wood the year after he died.
Miami Herald
09-04-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Gold miner had hope as NC site ran dry. Then he hit a big ‘rock' 129 years ago
A gold mine was running dry — but a North Carolina man held onto hope when he visited 129 years ago. Jacob Shinn's optimism was rewarded when he hit something hard while digging on April 9, 1896. The big 'rock' — later determined to be a 23-pound gold nugget — was the last major find at Reed Gold Mine near Charlotte, historians said. Here's what we know on the anniversary of the lucrative discovery. Finding the huge gold nugget Shinn struck gold almost 100 years after the first big nugget was found on John Reed's land in 1799. No gold discoveries had been documented in the United States before that. The site became Reed Gold Mine, the focus of the nation's first gold rush. It operated decades before people flocked to California for that state's gold rush, according to the N.C. Division of State Historic Sites and Properties and NCpedia, an online encyclopedia. But 'by the late 1800s, the mine had been mostly exhausted, and the prospectors who worked it had departed for other places like Colorado, Alaska and California,' the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources wrote in a blog post. 'Jake Shinn, though, hadn't lost hope.' At the time, the Kelly family owned the mine and allowed people to dig near the surface. Shinn was on the property with a group of men when they explored an 'untouched' stretch of road, the Reed Gold Mine historic site wrote in a past news release and an email to McClatchy News. Shinn was digging about 3 feet underground when he made a curious discovery on April 9, 1896. Other miners weren't paying attention to him since there had been 'false alarms,' historians wrote. Shinn's group reportedly 'found a rather large heavy rock, but it didn't have the correct look, so was tossed aside. Finally Jacob Shinn took it to the creek, washed it off and realized it did in fact contain a large amount of gold.' 'Boys I've got it!' Shinn said. The group was 'jubilant,' making a school principal wonder if they were drunk as they brought the gold to a store to go on display. The 23-pound nugget was melted down and sold for $4,800, according to historians. Relatives of one of the other group members, Mack Cox, claim he was the one who discovered the gold nugget. While it's possible that Cox dug it from the ground, the property on its website said it 'interprets this as the Shinn nugget.' Shinn was the one who washed off the nugget, unveiling the find, Larry Neal, site manager at Reed Gold Mine, told McClatchy News in an email. Is there more gold at the mine? Reed Gold Mine closed in 1912. Though Shinn is credited with making the last big discovery, the largest piece of gold unearthed at the property was a 28-pound nugget found early on by an enslaved boy, historians said. Today, a plaster cast of Shinn's nugget is held in a safe at Reed Gold Mine, now a state historic site. Visitors can follow a creek to see the area where Shinn made history. And those seeking the thrill of finding their own shiny piece of metal may be in luck. 'We use dirt from Little Meadow Creek for the panning area and find smaller natural gold all the time,' Neal wrote. 'To fully explore the property, it would have to be strip mined, ruining all historical evidence in the process.' The mine is in the Cabarrus County town of Midland, a roughly 20-mile drive east from uptown Charlotte.
