Remembering Carl Boettcher, UNC carver and WWI emigre

Pieces of UNC’s history remain throughout campus, and some were created by a man who came to the United States for a better life.

A wood carver for UNC and the Chapel Hill area in the early 1900s, Carl Boettcher was born in 1886 in Wolgeft, Germany. Boettcher’s mother died when he was 6 years old, and his father died when Boettcher was 10. He then lived in an orphanage until he turned 15, the age he became an apprentice in carving according to newspaper clippings from the North Carolina Collection.

Boettcher married his wife Emilie Kipper in 1910, but was drafted by Germany in 1915 to serve in World War I. He and his wife eventually immigrated to Wisconsin in 1923 and later moved to Michigan in the 1930s to work for a wood carving company.

Carolyn Edy, a UNC alumna and journalism professor at Appalachian State University, wrote an article about Boettcher in the 1990s. She says he was encouraged to move to Chapel Hill for work.

"He was this wonderful carver [who faced] anti-German sentiment, and so [Will] Cochrane and Billy Carmichael encouraged him to move to Chapel Hill," Edy said. "And then he started working for the University, where he worked in the buildings department for six years."

The Great Depression impacted Boettcher and his family heavily, prompting them to move to Catawba County, Newton and then Chapel Hill. Edy noted that part of why they recommended Chapel Hill was for its uniqueness, citing that Boettcher’s friends told him about the distinct accents that residents had.

"People would joke about Chapel Hill being strange," Edy said. "I guess people in Chapel Hill have been kind of wonderfully different over the decades."

Richard Ellington, president of the Chapel Hill Historical Society, wrote in an email to The Daily Tar Heel that his father Carl Ellington knew Boettcher personally, describing him as a quiet man who always worked on his craft. 

“He would often pull out a personal carving set, look for a block of scrap wood and proceed to carve a small animal or artistic piece," he wrote. "When he completed the piece, he would give it to one of the guys working with him."

Some of Boettcher’s work includes the University seal in front of South Building, the Forest Theatre sign, the memorial plaque in the Bowman Gray Memorial Pool and parts of the skyline in the Morehead Planetarium. However, there are no signs crediting him.

Ellington’s father and Boettcher took part in the ornamentation of stone entrances and signs near Cameron Avenue and South Columbia Street, according to Ellington. Ellington wrote that the craftsman would even make wooden pineapples.

“My father said that the stone columns were capped with carved pineapples that Boettcher created from mahogany, I believe," Ellington wrote. "There were several sites on campus that had signs or ornamentation carved by Boettcher."

The pineapples are no longer on campus, but one of Boettcher’s prized works is the Circus Parade, originally displayed in the Monogram Club, now known as Jackson Hall. 

The design came from a sketch by an illustrator and UNC art professor William Meade Prince. Boettcher carved the masterpiece in 1948 out of redwood, and it is nearly 25 feet long. It was placed on top of what used to be a soda fountain bar.

The circus parade was moved from Jackson Hall to the Carolina Inn, and now resides in the Carolina Club along with a sign crediting him and Meade Prince.

Hella Riabi, a junior communications major at UNC, has seen the Circus Parade in the Carolina Club. Her favorite part was the pirate. 

“I always [looked] at the animals, but the right part with the pirate, I never [saw] it before,” she said. "So it was my first time. And I find the part very beautiful, because there were a lot of details, and it reminded me a lot of Chapel Hill and the marching Tar Heels, the ones [that] do the music during football games and stuff.”

Boettcher died in 1950 in Carrboro from cancer, where he resided with his wife. However, his legacy lives on through his work and impact on UNC students. 

"It was one of the most interesting pieces in the building and one of the most interesting stories in the building," Edy said about the Circus Parade carving. 

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