From ‘Human Spider’ to highest-paid Santa: This daredevil from NC would be 125 today
When Bill Strother joked about scaling the local courthouse to drum up customers for his real estate business in 1915, he had no intention of following through.
And yet, when a crowd of thousands showed up the following day to watch him, that’s exactly what he did.
Strother made a name for himself free-climbing buildings for publicity stunts as the so-called Human Spider in the early 20th century, even inspiring a silent film. He retired after a bad fall, ran a small hotel in Virginia for a short time and — not to be outdone by his younger self — became “the world’s highest-paid Santa Claus” in 1951.
Strother was born Sept. 1, 1896, in Wayne County, about an hour southeast of Raleigh, according to the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
A columnist for the Neuse News said he was “slim, agile, light-footed” with “a tight grip” and was “full of self-confidence” as a young man.
He was, unsurprisingly, also an avid tree climber.
Bill Strother: The Human Spider
Strother got into the real estate business in Kinston after high school and organized an auction in town, according to the North Carolina Collection at the Forsyth County Public Library. But the flyers he ordered to promote the sale didn’t arrive in time.
The day before the sale, the library said, Strother went to a local diner and struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to him at the lunch counter.
“I guess I’ll have to climb the courthouse to draw a crowd,” he reportedly said.
According to the Neuse News and the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, the man with whom Strother was speaking was none other than H. Galt Braxton, publisher and editor of the Kinston Daily Free Press.
Braxton reportedly put Strother’s promises in print, saying “Bill Strother, The Human Spider, would be climbing the walls of the Lenoir County Courthouse.”
Strother went to the railroad station that morning, discovered the flyers he ordered still hadn’t arrived and headed for the courthouse to get the auction started, according to the library’s account.
“As he approached, he heard an increasing rumble from that direction,” the library said. “As he rounded the corner, he saw a huge crowd, estimated at 5,000 people, waiting to watch him climb the courthouse.”
Strother, according to the library, had “no choice” but to start climbing when he saw the crowd.
“Wearing a suit and a straw boater, he climbed the building, then sold about $35,000 (close to $900,000 in 2014 value) in real estate, thus beginning a new way of promoting real estate auctions,” the library said.
‘Daring work’
Strother used his newfound climbing skills to sell real estate for a time, according to the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. It wasn’t until 1917 that he “began climbing just for climbing’s sake.”
He often climbed to raise money for charities — including the United States for Victory Bonds, Red Cross and Salvation Army, the Neuse News reported.
In January 1918, Strother scaled the five-story Bank of Commerce building on North Main Street in High Point, according to the High Point Enterprise. He and George “The Human Fly” Polley performed the stunt together.
Strother was reportedly famous for his showmanship, often pretending to slip before catching himself.
He climbed the courthouse in Sylva, North Carolina, a few months later to raise money for the Red Cross, the Sylva Herald reported. During the Red Cross event, he was expected to climb to the top of a statue that perched on the courthouse and stand on one foot, then ride a bike around the edge of the building.
At the time, The Jackson County Journal reported Strother had “become famous for his climbing in the past few months and has received more press notoriety for his daring work than any other man in the world ever received in the short time he has been before the public. “
Strother had reportedly climbed “most of the Southern cities” in just six months, according to the newspaper.
In September 1918, the Wilson Daily Times reported Strother was recovering at home in North Carolina after a fall from a building in Long Branch, New Jersey, during another Red Cross event.
“Mr. Strother is now walking around on crutches but he hopes to soon be able to get back on the job, for he has some important work to do as he is to climb for the Fourth Liberty Loan,” the newspaper reported. “In fact his climbs are already booked and he says that the only thing that will stop him now is the draft.”
Becoming Santa Claus
Strother ended up in Los Angeles, where he climbed the International Bank on Sept. 7, 1922, according to the Forsyth County Public Library.
The daring stunt was viewed by thousands of people, including silent film star Harold Lloyd.
Inspired by Strother, Lloyd made the film “Safety Last,” released in 1923, about a boy who “leaves his small country town and heads to the big city to get a job,” according to IMDb. In one scene, Lloyd climbed over a building to win a girl, the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources said.
Strother got to play his friend “Limpy” Bill in the movie.
The daredevil climber’s career came to an end in 1930, and he settled down with his wife, a nurse he met during a stint in the hospital after one of his falls.
The couple ran a hotel in Virginia for a time before Strother came up with an idea for a Christmas show and pitched it to the Miller & Rhoads Department Store in Richmond, the Saturday Evening Post reported.
The store was in need of a Santa and offered him a job. Strother, so the story goes, wasn’t interested and “countered with a ridiculously high sum of $1,000 a week, thinking they’d leave him alone,” according to the newspaper.
But the store agreed, making Strother the “highest-paid Santa of the era.”
Strother made a show out of being Santa Claus, often climbing out of a chimney and using a “concealed throat-mike on an assistant” to call the children who visited him by name, according to the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame. The kids became his sole motivation, the Saturday Evening Post reported.
“They won my heart and I forgot all about acting,” he said in a 1951 interview. “I put everything of myself into what I was doing, and each child became as precious to me as if he were my own flesh and blood.”
Strother died in a car accident in 1957. He was 61 years old.
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 6:40 PM with the headline "From ‘Human Spider’ to highest-paid Santa: This daredevil from NC would be 125 today."
