Clarence A. Price Home Movies Collection

Clarence A. Price Home Movies Collection

The Clarence A. Price Home Movies Collection originally consisted of 26 reels of home movie footage shot by Clarence A. Price between 1947 and 1958, during which time he served as the manager and caretaker of the Daniel Boone Hotel in Downtown Boone, North Carolina.

Sometime in the mid-2000s, Janie Price King of Sunset Beach, NC, the daughter of Clarence A. Price, had many of the reels transferred to DVD by a commercial video transfer firm. Unfortunately, the frame rate used for this transfer sometimes does not match the correct frame rate for the films, creating the "jumpy," digital blur that sometimes appears when subjects are in motion. In addition, the poor quality of the original reels sometimes causes the footage to flutter or cycle through its frame. There is no way to correct these issues on this video file.

In response to these issues, though, Digital Watauga arranged with Ms. King in late 2016 to digitize the original home movie reels one at a time. Of the 26 surviving reels, 10 had deteriorated to the point that they were no longer able to pass through projection equipment. As a result, the DVD footage contains some scenes that survive in no other location since they can no longer be reproduced from the original reels. Most notably, the footage of the 1949 Watauga County Centennial Parade is one of these reels. In total, this collection contains the mid-2000s DVD transfer plus the 16 reels that were digitized for Digital Watauga in 2016.

Clarence Alton Price was born in Gaston County, NC, on May 15, 1904. He married his wife, Louvenia "Billie" Etheridge Price (1908-2000), on December 16, 1933. According to a Watauga Democrat article from November 9, 1939, Clarence A. Price appears to have taken over as assistant manager at the Daniel Boone Hotel early that month, arriving in Boone from his former position with the Elwood Hotel in High Point, NC. Later that month, Price was listed as the manager of the Daniel Boone Hotel in a newspaper advertisement. The Prices continuted to operate the Daniel Boone Hotel for a total of 37 years. Clarence A. Price passed away on January 21, 1982.

Series 1 consists of footage from 16 of the original 26 reels of home movies.

Series 2 consists of the footage from the mid-2000s composite DVD.

Clarence A. Price

1947-1958

Janie Price King

Janie Price King has extended use rights to the Digital Watauga Project through a use rights Deed of Gift and retains all other rights to this footage. Any reprinting, redistribution, or other use of images from this footage requires written permission from Janie Price King. Contact Digital Watauga for additional details.

8mm film and DVD

Moving Image

Boone, NC, Watauga County, NC, and Wilson County NC