Edwin Bedford Jeffress, owner of the ; mayor of Greensboro, N.C., from 1925 to 1929; and member of the North Carolina General Assembly from Guilford County in 1931. In May 1931, he was appointed chair of the State Highway Commission by Governor O. Max Gardner. When the North Carolina State Highway and Public Works Commission was formed in 1933, Jeffress was named chair by Governor John C. B. Ehringhaus. His tenure was cut short, however, by an illness that rendered him a semi-invalid for the rest of his life, much of which he spent at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, writing a history of North Carolina. Greensboro Daily News The collection includes correspondence and other papers chiefly relating to E. B. Jeffress's public life. Beginning in 1921 and continuing throughout the collection, there are items relating to Jeffress's managerial duties at the . Materials from the period 1925-1929 document Jeffress's activities as mayor of Greensboro, particularly his interests in taxes, highway construction, airmail delivery, and bonds to finance various civic improvements. Correspondence about highway construction, consolidation of the state's public universities, prison reform, electric power rate hikes, Democratic Party politics, and taxes documents Jeffress's tenure in the North Carolina General Assembly. There are also materials relating to Jeffress's activities as chair of the North Carolina State Highway Commission and its successor, the State Highway and Public Works Commission. Many of the letters are to and from persons interested in specific road projects. Other letters relate to prison problems, which were closely allied to road issues, since many roads were built using convict labor. Also included are a typed copy of Jeffress's unpublished manuscript and a few photographs. Greensboro Daily News The Modern State of North Carolina, 1776-1955
