I always wondered why North Carolina was called the Tar Heels state. The University of North Carolina uses Tar Heels as their athletic team nickname.  Apparently, when North Carolina was a British North American colony, North Carolina was an important source of the Royal Navy's stores of tar, pitch, and turpentine. Tar and pitch were used to paint the bottoms of wooden ships in order to seal the ships and to prevent shipworms from damaging the hulls. The tar was created by piling up pine logs and burning them until hot oil seeped out from the spout.  From 1720 to 1870, about 100 000 barrels of tar and pitch were shipped to England every year. After 1824, North Carolina became the leader for naval stores for the United States Navy. By the time the American Civil War started in 1861, North Carolina had more than 1600 turpentine distilleries. Walt Whitman, American essayist, poet, and journalist, gave the nickname of tarboilers  to the residents of North Carolina. North Caro...