William L. (William Luther) Spoon (1862-1942) was a civil engineer and good roads advocate of Alamance County, N.C. The collection includes personal and professional correspondence, writings, reports, blueprints, maps, and other papers of William Luther Spoon, his wife, Susan Addeline (Addie) Vernon Neville Spoon, their daughter, Nancy Miriam Spoon Alexander, and other members of the Shoffner, Spoon, and Neville families. Family correspondence includes letters between Spoon and his wife about their children, farm, saw and grist mill operations, and neighborhood affairs; letters from Spoon to his mother describing his work as a diamond drilling supervisor with the North Carolina Geological Survey, 1891-1892; and letters, 1916-1920, between the Spoons and their daughter, Nancy Miriam, when she was a student at Salem College. Spoon's professional correspondence with his supervisors, J. A. Holmes and Joseph Hyde Pratt of the North Carolina Geological Survey, and Logan W. Page, Vernon M. Peirce, and E. W. James of the Office of Public Roads, concerns his assignments, administrative matters, and expenses. Other papers relating to Spoon's career as an engineer include reports road crew supervisors made to him on road work and costs; Spoon's reports to the Office of Public Roads, United States Department of Agriculture, about trips he made promoting good roads; contractors' estimates for costs of road construction; diagrams, sketches, and notes concerning road construction projects; blueprints; and maps of the North Carolina highway system. Also included in the collection are genealogical notes; household account books; a record book of the Woman's Home Missionary Auxiliary, Mt. Pleasant Church, 1910; photographs and negatives; and other miscellaneous papers and volumes.
