Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05

The Price and the Faces of Progress

Story by Anna Oakes

Editor’s note: The following story is part of an ongoing series about the stories of people and businesses being displaced by the Highway 421 widening project.

Wade Coffey, Resident

Wade Coffey, 90, may be the last permanent resident on King Street in downtown Boone. He has lived in his small, white house at 204 East King Street since the 1940s.

An N.C. Department of Transportation plan to widen U.S. Highway 421, in preparation for the relocation of Watauga High School, will result in the demolition of Coffey’s home, along with a smaller rental house directly behind it. For Coffey, that means a lot of things.

It means that as a handicapped man, he will no longer have the convenience of living in town. It means a loss of income. It means leaving the home where he and his wife raised three children. It means worry and stress for his family. And it means that Coffey must build a new house, and relocate, at 90 years of age.

Several weeks ago, DOT officials visited Coffey to discuss their plans with him. He knew it was coming. About 12 years ago, the DOT sent him a letter informing him of the possibility that his house could be taken for road improvements. It didn’t worry him much then, but “my wife worried right much about it,” he said. His wife, Elizabeth Coffey, died of Alzheimer’s disease eight years ago.

“It worries me more now that I’m older,” Coffey said. “I turn 91 in June, and it’s pretty hard to get around.”

Coffey rents the house behind his for $700 a month, and he used to rent the lower level of his home for the same price. He originally thought the widening project would take only the house closest to the road.

“I didn’t know they were going to take both houses until two or three weeks ago,” he said. “But they’re going to take it all away from me, I reckon.” Coffey had planned to move into the rental house. Now he plans to build a new house on about four acres he owns near Tweetsie Railroad, the area of the county where he was raised.

As of a couple of weeks ago, the DOT had not made Coffey an offer for his property. He said he hasn’t hired an attorney to represent him in the matter.

“Unless they start to rob me, then I’ll get one,” he added. “I like to have faith in people as long as you can.”

Several others have offered to buy his property in the past, but Coffey refused to sell. “I didn’t want to leave here,” he said. If he weren’t handicapped, he would prefer to live out in the country, he said, but “at my age, this location means a lot to me.” Coffey said he realizes progress is important, however.

“I understand it’s for the best,” he said.

Born in Middle Fork in 1917, Coffey was raised on a farm. He left home in 1938 to build power lines in Maryland and New Hampshire. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941 and was in Galveston, Texas, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. He served four years, three months and 22 days in Belgium, France and Germany. He earned two Purple Hearts for twice being injured by shrapnel, in addition to the Bronze Star for Bravery.

After the war, Coffey sold insulation and storm windows for a while before cutting meat at Colonial Stores in Norfolk, Va. He returned to Boone and milked 42 cows for Gordon Winkler, a former mayor of Boone, on a dairy farm where the TT Electronics IRC factory now stands.

He then got into the cattle industry, buying and shipping cattle for Watauga County farmers and eventually shipping cattle to locations in the western part of the country. He owned a barn and property in the area of Tweetsie Railroad and spent 41 years in the cattle business.

The house Coffey currently lives in was built in 1932. He first resided there as a tenant for three or four years in the ‘40s before returning to buy the house in 1955. He dug out a basement, where his wife had a piano studio, and built onto the kitchen.

As a kid, he remembers, the streets of downtown Boone were muddy and unpaved. Only 60 feet of a board sidewalk existed. In addition to his house, only two other buildings stood on his side of the road; across the street, there was nothing. Coffey would sit on his porch and wait 30 minutes before a single vehicle passed by.

“It’s changed quite a bit since then,” he said.

But he said he doesn’t mind the traffic on King Street now. “The traffic here won’t bother me as bad as Tweetsie Railroad will,” he said.

In addition to his wife, Coffey’s oldest daughter has also passed away. His son is a hospital chaplain in Pennsylvania, and his youngest daughter, who frequently comes to check on him and buy him groceries and medicine, lives just outside of Boone off U.S. Highway 421.

He suffers from arthritis and a bad left leg, and recently he’s been afflicted with fainting spells. About a month ago, he underwent tests at the hospital after passing out several times in one night.

“I guess at my age, most anything could happen,” he said.

Coffey continues to look after himself, however. He’s spent the last 16 years doing all of the housework while his wife was sick and since she died. Downstairs, the walls are lined with more than 160 completed puzzles—all 1,000 to 2,000 pieces—that he worked on to pass the time for three years after his wife died.

“I had to have something to do,” he said.

The new house near Tweetsie will be built similar to the one on King Street, with three bedrooms upstairs and a living room, dining room and kitchen downstairs, Coffey said. Maybe he’ll have a small garden, too. He has some money saved, but for the most part, he’s relying on money from DOT to build his new home.

He has nine great-grandchildren and “I have to have a place for them to stay,” he said.