Popeye cartoon character approaches milestone birthday

Comic strip icon Popeye the Sailor Man is creeping up on his 100th birthday in 2029.

 

Fans are urging America to get this party started early…by bringing Popeye back in balloon form for the 100th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Nov. 26, 2026, in New York City.

The 56-foot Popeye balloon appeared regularly in the Macy’s parade from 1957-68.

 

Popeye’s sweetheart Olive Oyl holds the distinction of being the “first female character to appear in balloon form” in the Macy’s parade. She made her debut in 1982. Olive’s balloon was about 75 feet tall; she was joined in her final year (1986) by the infant Swee’Pea.

 

Both Popeye and Olive were created by cartoonist Elzie Crisler (E. C.) Segar of Chester, Ill., who was born in 1894. 

As a teenager, Segar worked as the silent film projectionist at the Chester Opera House and drew cartoons with colored chalk on city sidewalks to advertise the week’s movie.

Opera house owner J. William Schuchert recognized Segar’s talent and paid for a correspondence course in cartooning for Segar, offered by the W. L. Evans School of Cartooning, based in Cleveland, Ohio. The curriculum included 19 lessons on “How to Draw Animated Cartoons.”

After finishing up each evening at the opera house, Segar “lit up the oil lamps about midnight and worked on the course until 3 a.m.” He completed his coursework in 1916, at age 17, and was hired to draw for the Chicago Herald newspaper.

In 1918, Segar moved on to William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago Evening American. The newspaper’s managing editor thought Segar could succeed in New York City, so he sent him to Hearst’s King Features Syndicate.

 

Segar’s comic strip, “Thimble Theatre,” debuted in the New York Journal on Dec.19, 1919. Olive Oyl was a member of the original cast, along with her brother Castor Oyl.

 

More than a decade later (on Jan. 17, 1929), Castor Oyl needed to hire a mariner to pilot his ship over to a private island. Castor picked up a weatherbeaten sailor named Popeye on the docks.

 

Segar fashioned his new character after Frank “Rocky” Fiegel, a rough and tumble Merchant Marine veteran who was born in Poland. In Chester, Rocky Fiegel was always getting into fights, but he also gave out candy and treats to children, including a young E. C. Segar.

 

Rocky worked at Wiebusch’s Tavern in Chester and entertained customers by telling stories about his adventures sailing the Seven Seas. Olive Oyl was patterned after Dora Paskel, owner of a corner grocery store in Chester.

 

Newspaper readers welcomed the addition of Popeye to the “Thimble Theatre” comic strip, and Segar elevated Popeye to become the star of the show.

Segar commonly signed his work “Segar,” connected to a sketch of a smoldering cigar, reflecting the slang-like pronunciation of his surname, “SEE-gar.” Segar died of leukemia in 1938 at age 43.

 

By this time, “Thimble Theatre” was published in about 500 newspapers globally. King Features Syndicate refused to let the comic strip disappear.

Tom Sims of Ohatchee, Ala., took over as writer. His father had operated a steamship on the Coosa River in Alabama. Sims said he mentally transformed the river into a “salty sea” for Popeye’s future adventures.

 

Sims’ scripts were drawn by Bela Zaboly of Cleveland, Ohio. Sims and Zaboly had a long run working together, collaborating on the daily Popeye comic strip well into the 1950s.

 

In 1959, the torch was passed to Forrest Cowles “Bud” Sagendorf of Wenatchee, Wash. He once worked as E. C. Segar’s assistant. Sagendorf continued to draw the Popeye strips until his death in 1994 at age 79.

Preston Tucker brought fame, if not fortune, to Ypsilanti

Ypsilanti, Mich., was the home base of automaker Preston Thomas Tucker, who was a flash in the pan 80 years ago. He formed his company in 1946 to manufacture the iconic “Tucker Torpedo.”

 

A member of the Automotive Hall of Fame, Tucker was born in 1903. Fascinated with the emerging world of cars, he spent much of his childhood hanging around service stations and garages, learning his way around under the hood.

He started driving at age 11, and as a teenager, Tucker began purchasing pre-owned automobiles to repair and refurbish for resale. He dropped out of high school to take a job as an office boy for the Cadillac Motor Company and later worked on the assembly line at Ford Motor Company.

In his early 20s, Tucker jumped at the opportunity to join the Lincoln Park (Mich.) Police Department, so he could drive fast, high-performance police cars.

 

It was a cold winter day when Officer Tucker used a blowtorch to cut a hole in the dashboard of a cruiser to allow engine heat to warm the cabin. Brilliant, but against department regulations.

Instantly, he realized that he wasn’t cut out for a career in law enforcement. Tucker became a crackerjack car salesman, selling Studebakers, Chryslers, Pierce-Arrows and Packards for various dealerships.

Tucker tried his hand at building race cars in Indianapolis before finally “settling down” as a family man in Ypsilanti in the late 1930s. 

He established Ypsilanti Machine and Tool Company, by remodeling an old barn on his property into a two-story garage, which would soon be “bustling with draftsmen, mechanics and engineers,” all engaged in multiple entrepreneurial efforts to help with the World War II effort.

“As the war was ending, Tucker hoped to become a carmaker, capitalizing on his visceral understanding of car buyers plus the technical knowledge he had gained in the racing world,” commented Joe DeMatio of The Haggerty Group. 

“A less ambitious man might have been deterred by his lack of money, education or experience in the auto industry.”

Dominance by the “Big Three” – General Motors, Ford and Chrysler – left “little room for newcomers,” DeMatio said. “But Preston Tucker would not be thwarted.”

“He would conceive and construct a rear-engine drive motorcar that would ‘open a new era in motoring’ – a comfortable, efficient, safe and affordable sedan with technological leaps in suspension, body engineering and powertrain efficiency.”

“Tucker correctly assessed the mood of the American public – they were starved for new cars after the wartime production shutdown. Throughout 1946, word spread across America of Tucker’s impending ‘Car of Tomorrow – Today!’”

Tucker’s revolutionary “Cyclops Eye” center headlight was designed to activate at steering angles of greater than 10 degrees to light the car’s path around corners. He lined up 363 dealerships and geared up for production in a vacant, government surplus factory in Chicago.

 

The trade publication Automotive News commented that “Tucker had the aura of a lone knight ready to take on the giants of the industry.”

Against all odds, the Tucker Corporation produced 51 cars (called Tucker 48s) in 1948. 

And that was it.

It’s an incredible story about how American political muscle and pressure from industry heavyweights choked Tucker’s company into oblivion.

Francis Ford Coppola revealed all the details in his 1988 motion picture: “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” starring Jeff Bridges.

Remarkably, 47 of the original 51 Tucker 48s are still in existence. 

The Antique Automobile Club of America Museum in Hershey, Pa., has three on display.

 

Visit the Tucker Automobile Preservation Society online at tuckerclub.org.

Tucker, who suffered from lung cancer, died on Dec. 26, 1956, at age 53. 

Gov. Morehead’s influence continues to resonate

Morehead City’s port is considerably smaller than its “sister port” in Wilmington, but the Morehead City facility was officially dedicated as North Carolina’s “first” state port on Aug. 14, 1952. 

(A dedication ceremony for Wilmington’s port occurred about a month later.)

The event in Morehead City was a big deal and historic occasion. State dignitaries and local officials rolled out the red carpet to welcome 82-year-old John Motley Morehead III to town to deliver keynote remarks at the Port of Morehead City ceremony.

He was the grandson of former North Carolina Gov. John Motley Morehead, who would become the namesake for a town that began to form in 1857. 

Establishment of the port here as well as the extension of the railroad from Goldsboro to the coast were masterminded by the former governor.

Indeed, Gov. Morehead became known as the “Father of Modern North Carolina” for driving industrialization and building infrastructure, especially railroads and improved waterways.

 A large crowd assembled in 1952 for the purpose of showing respect and paying tribute to John Motley Morehead III. He was a fairly famous guy himself, having attained great wealth as a chemical engineer, inventor and industrialist.

 

John Motley Morehead III (at right) is shown here with R. Gregg Cherry, North Carolina’s governor from 1945-49. 

One of his Morehead's early scientific discoveries was the development of a process to economically manufacture calcium carbide…leading to the formation of Union Carbide Corporation in 1917. 

(Union Carbide became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company in 2001.)

As a philanthropist, John Motley Morehead III gave generously to his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Graduating in the Class of 1891, he established the Morehead Foundation, which provided funding to launch the renowned Morehead Scholars Program as well as build Morehead Planetarium and the Genevieve B. Morehead Memorial Art Gallery on campus.

 

Additionally, John Motley Morehead III and Rufus Lenoir Patterson Jr. (a cousin, classmate and fraternity brother) presented the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower to the university.

John Motley Morehead III told everyone who attended the 1952 ceremony at the Morehead City Port that he was proud to come to Morehead City to comment on his grandfather’s “heritage, dreams and fulfillment.”

He said: “As the ship channels are further deepened through the sandbars to the sea, the ports of Morehead City and Wilmington will become increasingly hopeful North Carolina centers of commerce, as a vital part in a more prosperous and peaceful world.”

Those treasured words have been modernized over time. In 2026, the mission of the North Carolina State Ports Authority is “to be the gateway to global markets and to enhance the economy of North Carolina by supporting and improving the state’s logistics network.”

 

In general terms, “a logistics network includes facilities, means of transport and processes that allow products to flow from the supplier to the final consumer.”

One reliable source tells us: “Logistics is of utmost importance in the present day, as it plays a crucial role in the smooth functioning of global trade, commerce and transportation.”

It’s good to know that “commerce” is still an essential word.

In 2023, the John Locke Foundation, based in Raleigh, commissioned the Reason Foundation of Los Angeles, Calif., to conduct an independent evaluation of the North Carolina state ports. 

The report was prepared by Jay Derr, a transportation policy analyst at Reason.

 

Derr said that the Morehead City and Wilmington ports “generate $16.1 billion in economic output for North Carolina.”

It’s important for policymakers to continue investing wisely in the state ports in order to enhance North Carolina’s competitive position, Derr said.

Former Gov. Morehead and John Motley Morehead III would be pleased to hear it.

Gov. W. Kerr Scott ‘found funds’ for N.C. ports in 1949

In 1924, a North Carolina Ports Commission was formed, effectively replacing the State Ship and Water Transportation Commission (SSWTC). The new commission was given the task of establishing port facilities for seagoing vessels.

A statewide bond referendum for $8.7 million to develop the facilities was placed on the ballot in November 1924 but failed to pass. The outcome was 40.8% voting in favor with 59.2% opposed. Lacking funding to accomplish its task, the Ports Commission literally folded up its tent and ceased to exist.

Despite the absence of a state ports program, Wilmington and Morehead City continued efforts to improve their respective facilities.

Historian Herbert W. Stanford III said the Morehead City port struggled to “attract much-needed business.”

“For years, the port’s main supporting commodity was mullet unloaded at its piers by fishing boats that netted the mullet in local waters. The railroad carried from the city two or three carloads of fish several days a week and became known as the ‘Mullet Line.’”

 

“There seemed to be reasonable assurance that commerce would develop…if the port’s facilities were enlarged,” Stanford said.

 “Subsequently, in 1933 a Morehead City Port Commission was formed (by the General Assembly) to investigate this possibility and study traffic potentials,” he said.

The commission was successful in securing a $400,000 loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a U.S. government-sponsored agency that had been established in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover.

The financing enabled construction of a 1,000-foot pier and a 32,000-square-foot terminal.

Still, “no import-export boom developed,” Stanford noted.

In 1945, the state legislature established the North Carolina State Ports Authority with responsibility for developing and improving harbors at Wilmington and Morehead to “benefit waterborne commerce.”

William Kerr Scott (went by Kerr, pronounced “car”) took the state by storm when he was North Carolina’s governor from 1949-53.

 

The late Philip Gerard, an author and professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, said Gov. Scott accomplished some “amazing” things in just four years related to transportation, public education and public health.

Gov. Scott proposed the issue of $7.5 million in bonds for construction and improvement of the deepwater ports at Wilmington and Morehead City to handle oceangoing vessels. 

The legislature approved this measure in 1949 without a single dissenting vote.

“Remarkably, he (Gov. Scott) accomplishes all of this, raising only one tax: a penny per gallon of gas to fund roads. He leaves the state treasury with a surplus of $40 million – which gives him special pleasure, having been accused of attempting to bankrupt the state with overambitious plans,” Gerard said.

 Known as “The Squire of Haw River,” Gov. Scott enjoyed tremendous popularity, especially within farming communities. He called his supporters the “Branchhead Boys,” people who lived at the head of the branch or the head of the creek, and therefore, were “the most rural of the rural.”

 

The late Dr. Julian McIver Pleasants of Davidson, N.C., a retired history professor, said Gov. Scott “was the most controversial, polarizing…and successful North Carolina politician of his age – the most influential governor in the state’s history.”

“Two successful, progressive governors who knew Scott’s contributions well praised his work,” Dr. Pleasants said. “Jim Hunt (shown above) called Scott the state’s ‘political savior,’ and Terry Sanford (shown below) lauded Kerr Scott as the ‘Great Agrarian’ who put ‘a new pulse beat into the progressive heart of North Carolina.’”

 

Raleigh newspaper reporter John Simmons Fentress said former Gov. Scott was “stubborn as an Alamance mule and just as unpredictable.”

“Scott was essentially a needler, a provoker, a builder of fires under the foot-draggers and the indolent,” Fentress said.

N.C. coastal region once supported 4 ports of entry

For most of the colonial period, there were essentially four working ports of entry to serve maritime traffic within the territory that became North Carolina.

Operating under the authority of the Lords Proprietors, Gov. Charles Eden decreed Port Bath as the first official port in 1716. 

Located on Bath Creek, a tributary of the Pamlico River, in present-day Beaufort County, Bath is North Carolina’s oldest town, having formed in 1705. 

Initially, Port Bath served as a primary gateway for ships navigating through the Ocracoke Inlet.

Port Roanoke was located at Edenton in Chowan County near the western end of Albemarle Sound, near the confluence of the Roanoke and Chowan rivers. 

Interestingly, the settlement was originally known as “the Towne on Queen Anne’s Creek,” but was renamed as Edenton in 1722 as a tribute to Gov. Eden shortly after his death.

 

Port Beaufort in Carteret County was strategically located near Cape Lookout with ocean access through present-day Beaufort Inlet.

 

The fourth North Carolina port was established in 1726 and located on the lower Cape Fear River in Brunswick Town. In short order, Brunswick Town became the busiest of the four North Carolina ports.

 

When Wilmington was incorporated in 1739, the port facilities and customs collection office were moved there, about 10 miles upriver from Brunswick Town.

 

In the spring of 1776, a British raiding party burned Brunswick Town to the ground during the American Revolutionary War. The town was never rebuilt.

Combined, these four ports “were essential elements in the development of commerce in North Carolina,” wrote historians John Hairr and the late David Stick, coauthors of a 2006 essay titled “Ports and Harbors” published by NCPedia.

Although Beaufort was a vibrant community with maritime significance, former Gov. John Motley Morehead envisioned the establishment of a new port, one built from the ground up for industrial-scale shipping.

 In the 1850s, he selected Shepard’s Point on the Carteret County mainland as the preferred location, because it offered a better, deeper and wider channel to accommodate large ships.

A major factor was the construction of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad from Goldsboro to the coast, an extension of the North Carolina Railroad from Charlotte. 

It was here, at the end of the rail line, where a “bustling commerce center specifically designed for shipping” would blossom, Morehead proclaimed.

 Morehead and others purchased 600 acres and formed the Shepard Point Land Company. A town was laid out, and lots were sold in 1857, specifically to coincide with the arrival of the railroad in 1858. The settlement was chartered in 1861 and named Morehead City, in honor of John Motley Morehead.

Author Herbert W. Stanford III said the Civil War years, followed by the hurricane of 1879, “hampered development of the Morehead City port.” 

It was now obvious, Stanford said, that Morehead City was not going to meet the expectations of former Gov. Morehead and grow into the “New York City of the South.”

Stanford said the port facilities at Morehead City “fell into disrepair and disuse by the end of the 19th century. The port was closed to shipping in 1904.”

However, to Morehead City’s benefit, a movement for state-owned ports began to gain momentum in the state legislature during the 1920s, Stanford wrote.

Gov. Cameron A. Morrison established the State Ship and Water Transportation Commission (SSWTC) in 1923. Its purpose was to “study the possibility of establishing docks, wharves, terminals and other facilities to promote waterborne commerce.”

 

The SSWTC affirmed that localities lacked the resources to build the infrastructure, concluding that any initiative had to be state-driven and state-funded.