Accompanying Photos

James Denmark

Photo Caption: One of James Denmark’s photos from long ago shows a “human fly” inching, finger by finger, up the old eight-story Banner Building on North Elm Street.  The guy climbing the building is wearing a sash that says, “Santanet, Bann...

If only he hadn’t been so darn skimpy with information about them.        

The most intriguing of the five shots shows a “human fly” inching, finger by finger, up the old eight-story Banner Building on North Elm Street.

An enlargement shows the climber wearing a sash that says “Santanet", and on the negative was "Banner Building, 1915.” Rubberneckers stand on the sidewalk, lean out Banner windows and stand in a wagon in the street.    

But when in 1915 was the photo taken?   

Jay Denmark of Raleigh, who like his grandfather is a professional photographer, says he believes it was on Thanksgiving Day. His grandfather also shot a foot race here that day.

The city’s two newspapers, the morning Greensboro Daily News and the afternoon Greensboro Record, covered the race, but made no mention of anyone climbing the Banner Building. It stood next to the courthouse, then at Elm and Market, where the five-mile race began and ended.

In another photo of the Banner Building, someone in the crowd holds a sign that says: “Football, Statesville vs. Greensboro, 3:30 p.m., Cone Park.”

The game wasn’t mentioned in either newspaper, and in late November, darkness would have ended any game starting at 3:30 p.m. by halftime.

The city didn’t have a lighted stadium until 1930.

A search of old newspapers on microfilm indicates Greensboro High School, as it was called then, played Statesville that year on Oct. 16.

That was the same week as the local Central Carolina Fair, where Denmark also took a photo.  

The newspaper made no mention of anyone climbing the Banner that day.

Maybe James Denmark, who his grandson says rarely took pictures outside the Raleigh area, made two trips to Greensboro that year, on Oct. 16 and Thanksgiving Day.

Jay Denmark, like his grandfather, shoots portraits and outside shots — anything a client asks.

Like his grandfather, he confines his work pretty much to Raleigh.

Not long ago, he also became an archivist.

Another photographer who had known his grandfather took him to a Raleigh warehouse where a stack of boxes went floor to ceiling. These were James Denmark’s negatives, 700,000 of them.

Jay Denmark and a helper spent a year cataloging the negatives. He was puzzled because all were taken in the Raleigh area except for the few in Greensboro and some in Wilmington.

James Denmark, who died in 1956, was to Raleigh what Carol Martin and his partners were later to Greensboro.

After 10 years of shooting for the newspaper, Martin in 1947 opened a downtown studio. He photographed weddings, business events, newborn babies, sports events, and downtown scenes.

The Greensboro Historical Museum is now cataloging Martin’s 500,000 negatives.

Jay Denmark wants any  information anyone might  have about his grandfather’s Greensboro pictures. He can be reached at (919) 789-3320.

The only daredevils downtown these days are kids doing flips on skateboards. Runners still race on Thanksgiving Day, just not downtown: the annual Greensboro Gobbler race, circles Country Park. Maybe organizers, for history’s sake, will eventually move it downtown.

Finally, who or what was Santanet? The name sounds like a Web site. A Google search by historical museum archivist Stephen Catlett found that Santanet soft drink, which was made in North Carolina, went on the market in early 1915. Maybe the climber was promoting the soda.

For the really curious, one Malcolm Jones won the  Thanksgiving foot race with a time of 34 minutes and 35 seconds, and in October, Greensboro High beat Statesville 6 to 0.