Boodleville provided residences for students taking advantage of the G.I. Bill to continue their education, and was briefly something of a boom town in Cullowhee.
By Jim Buchanan
A ghost story usually involves an individual human being who has passed on but lingers in some ephemeral form.
It’s the time of year for a ghost story, but this one doesn’t involve a single person.
Rather, it’s an entire community that is no more.
Welcome to Boodleville. Or perhaps more appropriately, farewell to Boodleville, which has very nearly faded entirely from memory in Jackson County.
It’s a tale that involves two world wars.
Veterans of the War to End All Wars, later renamed World War I, had been promised a wartime bonus service payment, and that bonus pay was approved by Congress in 1924.
Two problems arose: The fact full payment wasn’t scheduled to be delivered until 1945, and the Great Depression, which had many veterans up in arms in 1932 demanding immediate payment to help their struggling families.
A group dubbed “The Bonus Army” headed to Washington, D.C., and set up a shantytown below the Capitol and along the nearby Anacostia River demanding action. The Jackson County Journal of July 28, 1932, reported that Jackson County veterans were among the 2,000 state veterans planning to head to Washington, D.C., to join the “Bonus Expeditionary Forces.” Congress didn’t move to act to address the situation, and then- U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the Bonus Army removed from all government property. Shots were fired and two veterans were killed. President Herbert Hoover ordered the Bonus Army campsites cleared, troops and tanks were sent in, and the shantytowns were burned along with some veterans’ few possessions.
The incident may not have ended Hoover’s career, but it certainly didn’t advance it.
The following year another Bonus Army showed up in Washington, where it was greeted by members of a new administration, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. No “Bonus Bill” passed, but the Civilian Conservation Corps was, giving jobs to many unemployed veterans.
To the point of this tale, the incident also sowed the seeds of the G.I. Bill of Rights, which was passed in 1944. Even though World War II was still raging, a successful end was in sight, and a repeat of the mistreatment of veterans was a priority to be avoided at all costs.
The bill, among other things, offered tuition-free education benefits to veterans seeking to continue college or vocational school, with a cost-of-living stipend thrown in.
Veterans flooded college campuses.
Which brings us to Boodleville.
Built with prefabricated housing from the military, Boodleville was a boom town, an entity within itself on the campus of what was then called Western Carolina Teachers College, rising up in the area across from Brown Cafeteria.
The Sylva Herald of Nov. 7, 1946 wrote of what could more or less be described as the groundbreaking of the town.
“With work completed on the pre-fabricated housing project at Western Carolina Teachers College, 33 ex-GI’s and their wives and families have already made their homes in the GI Village. Some of the wives are attending college with their husbands, several are teaching school, some have part-time jobs, and some are busy at keeping house. Two families have two children, and four families have one child, making a total baby population of eight. The houses are in units of six apartments, some of which are two-room and some three-room.”
The housing couldn’t be described as swank, being outfitted thusly: “An electric hotplate, a fuel oil burner, a water heater, two occasional chairs, a dinette set, and an Army type, double-decker bed are furnished. The college supplies electricity, water, and garbage disposal, all of which is included for the nominal rental charge of $16 for the two-room apartments and $21 for the three-room apartments.”
Still, the Herald noted, “The residents of the GI Village have many comments on its comforts and accommodations, all of which express sincere appreciation.”
The growth kept coming. By 1947 almost half – 49 percent – of college admissions were veterans. The Catamount yearbook noted 1947 was the first year men outnumbered women at WCTC, with men comprising 70 percent of enrollment.
Boodleville was on the map. In its heyday had its own sports teams, fire department, city council and mayor.
As the great WWII cohort moved through the system, Boodleville eventually shrank and without fanfare simply ceased to exist.
It was a town that wasn’t killed by the mines playing out, a catastrophic flood or some invading army.
It was killed by prosperity, the prosperity of a growing college with a building boom and better facilities, a growing economy and the relative peace of the post-Korea years.
In short, it just wasn’t needed anymore. A twist worthy of Rod Serling, perhaps not, but the rare happy ending to a ghost story.
