Killer Curve

Hawthorne Curve, also known as Killer Curve or, as locals know it Kurfees Curve, was a section of Salem Parkway that passes south of downtown Winston-Salem. The highway was first Hawthorne US 158, then as East-West Expressway, then as Interstate 40, then as Business 40, and now named Salem Parkway. 

Since its opening in 1958, the curve, a 10° S-curve overpass of Hawthorne Road, became an infamous accident-prone location. The 45-mph curve featured short merges and oddly angled bridges. It was particularly hazardous for westbound vehicles, which would wreck against the outside edge of the curve, slide along the guardrail, and in some cases, go over the guardrail and fall 35 feet onto the parking lots below. However, most of the accidents were usually the result of speeding reckless drivers, not the curve itself.

How the Curve Came About

Between the late 1920s and the early 1940s, Marshall Kufees ran for various local offices eight times, and lost each time. Then, in 1949, he ran for mayor and won, beating out incumbent George Lentz, who was one of the city’s most popular mayors. Kufees went on to serve six consecutive terms as mayor, from 1949 to 1961.  Once taking office, Kufees immediately started fulfilling his many campaign promises. 

The first promise had been to bring ABC stores to the city. Greensboro and High Point had been draining off local booze taxes for years. When the first ABC store opened on North Cherry Street in 1951, it was immediately dubbed the “Kurfees Drugstore.”

In those days, farmers who sold their tobacco at any of the downtown warehouses were given vouchers which they could cash at the “payoff office,” located in a former bank building at Trade and Eighth Street. Kurfees noticed that there were no restrooms there, and that farmers waiting in long lines would slip off into the nearby alleys, so he had the city build a public restroom across the street next to fire station #1 on West Eighth Street. Of course, it was immediately called the “Kurfees Crapper.”

Next, he went to work on building the five new roads he had promised, the Cherry-Marshall Expressway, Peter’s Creek Parkways, Silas Creek Parkway, a North-South Expressway, and an East-West Expressway. By 1954, the 18-mile East-West Expressway was approved and the state began making offers to the property owners in its path. 

Originally, the highway was designed to run straight through the southern part of downtown. This path would have led to the demolition of a group of businesses, such as the Rose n' Thistle Restaurant (known for live music and birch beer), Bobbitt’s College Pharmacy, and the original Town Steak House. 

When the state began making offers to the property owners in the path of the expressway, some accepted their offers right away, but one did not. William Chamis, the owner of Town Steak House wanted more, so the state began condemnation proceedings against him. Chamis hired the brilliant lawyer Fred Hutchins and fought back. The state found themselves outgunned and the courts ruled that the state must pay Chamis about $75,000 for his property, more than twice the original offer, and that it also must pay the cost of moving the Town Steak House to a new site.

Other property owners decided they also wanted more money and hired Hutchins. The state calculated that these extra procurement costs could add as much as half a million dollars to the cost of the project, so they developed a new plan. Instead of building on the surface, they would build a viaduct over the area, thus avoiding a lot of demolition and cost.

The viaduct was designed to start from the Cloverdale hill, run eastward straight to Peter’s Creek near Lockland Avenue, take a right turn to follow Peter’s Creek for a few hundred yards southward, and then turn back toward the east. The turn to the right included a 10 degree-curve, which was not considered extreme. Naturally, the locals named the curve “Kurfees Curve.” 

How the Curve Became a Problem

The East-West Expressway opened in early January, 1958 from Knollwood Street to the Cherry-Marshall interchange. Because it was the first lit freeway in the Southeast, the opening was held after dark so that users could enjoy a new experience. When the expressway opened, the speed limit was 45 miles per hour from end to end and drivers had no problem navigating the curve at that speed. 

But then what was originally a local road was unexpectedly added to the brand new Interstate Highway system. This immediately increased the traffic flow and — the speed limit. The expressway instantly became the busiest section of highway in North Carolina and would remain so for a decade.

With the narrow viaduct carrying far more traffic than it was designed for and drivers ignoring the speed limit, accidents began occurring on the curve. The worst accident occurred in 1989 when an eastbound tractor trailer rolled onto the median and slid upside down for several hundred feet. The driver and a passenger were killed, and another passenger was seriously injured.

Most of the best known accidents were westbound and involved vehicles jumping the rail over Hawthorne Road. The most spectacular occurred in the early days when a carload of RJR Tobacco second shift workers went airborne over Hawthorne and landed on its wheels in the Pure gas station at First and Hawthorne. No one was seriously injured.

It was a Perceptual Problem 

The problem was more perceptual than factual due to the accidents being sensationalized by local news sources. Everyone had a story or knew a story about Kurfees Curve. But here are the facts.

For over the four decades of its existence, the curve had an average of about forty accidents per year, which was less than at the Interstate 40 and US 52 North-South Expressway intersection. Despite the perceived reputation of the curve, only about seven or eight people (no official count available) died there. When you consider that over 2.6 million drivers made it safely through the curve during its existence, their chance of having an accident there was about .006 percent, and the chance of dying there was even less.

Attempts to Fix the Problem

Over the years, several studies of the curve were conducted and various fixes were made to reduce the number of accidents. Some of the fixes included a speed reduction zone back to 45-mph speed, more noticeable guardrails, installation of blinking lights, and a warning sign that said “Too Fast For Curve When Flashing!” that had a yellow light, triggered by radar, that flashed to indicate the vehicle was going too fast for the curve. The sign and light didn’t help much since drivers ignored them causing the light to flash almost constantly. 

Most of the curve was heavily upgraded during the 1990s, which included the replacement of the original concrete stretch with asphalt, to blend with the re-constructed stretches of I-40 in Clemmons. 

Problem Solved

After all previous efforts to slow drivers and reduce the number of accidents failed, in 1998, officials decided to realign the viaduct to reduce sharpness of the curve. The cost of the project was $26 million: $29 million for construction, plus another $6 million to acquire the extra property needed for the construction. Construction lasted for two years and was completed seven months early. The new viaduct was fully open by the middle of 2000, minus the curve. The Killer Curve may be gone, but its stories live on!