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Burlington originated as a railroad town but gained worldwide fame as the home of Burlington Industries, once the largest textile maker in the world. Now a city of 50,000 people, it is the national headquarters of Laboratory Corporation of America, the second largest medical testing laboratory in the nation.

While most American cities boomed decades, even centuries ago, the city of Charlotte does so now. However it is the Charlotte of old that is worth revisiting. It is this community that Charlotte natives remember fondly, but newcomers have never seen.

In the fall of 1923, the Shelby Kiwanis Club developed a plan to create a county-wide fair combining the Boiling Springs, Fallston, and Union community fairs into one event. Through the sales of $20 shares of stock, $15,000 was raised to establish the Cleveland County Fair. The first fair was held in 1924 with 70,000 in attendance. Since then, the theme has always been to celebrate city and farm life coming together through such popular attractions as agricultural exhibits, livestock, carnival rides, stage show revues, stock car racing, tractor pulls, and demolition derbies. Today, the Cleveland County Fair remains the largest county fair in North Carolina and the county's largest continuing attraction, drawing attendees in from a 75-mile radius of Shelby. The average annual attendance holds strong at over 175,000 people.

Cleveland County, North Carolina, selflessly gave to World War II, with 6,500 people--more than 11% of the county's population at that time--taking part in the conflict. This rural county, which contributed almost double its share of service personnel, lost 190 fine young men--almost five times the expected casualties for a North Carolina county. Cleveland County residents participated in most significant engagements of the war, in every imaginable capacity, and in every branch of service--from the infantrymen, to the sailors, to the airmen, to the marines. At home, window banners displayed blue stars for each family member serving and gold stars for those who made the supreme sacrifice.

From Durham, North Carolina's start in the tobacco and textile industries, the stories of the history and evolution of the Bull City are fascinating and sometimes unexpected.

From the Cigarette City to the City of Medicine, Durham has progressed from a country crossroad, famed for rum and rowdiness, to a prosperous metropolis, renowned for medical research and advanced technology. Recognized as a thriving point in North Carolina's Research Triangle, the city began along industrial and commercial networks as early as the seventeenth century, paving the way for famous beginnings in the distinctive tobacco and textile industries. From its roots in the agrarian Carolina backcountry to its foundation as a railroad stop, growth into a tobacco-based industrial area, and transformation into a coming-of-age city, the Bull City story is wrought with tales of coincidence, good fortune, and unexpected outcomes. Durham exists through quirk and happenstance, derived from a slave's drowsiness, a textile tycoon's authority, and the union of a widower and the county's loveliest girl. The developing city embodies the spirit of these unique beginnings.

Starting long before North Carolina was established and extending to the present, Durham: A Bull City Story recounts the engaging, comprehensive history of an environmentally and culturally rich area of the state. A myriad of first-hand accounts allow the reader to mingle with Durham's residents throughout significant historical times.

In Eastern North Carolina lies a rural, agrarian community known as Edgecombe County. Here, the Tar River winds slowly through the land and provides beauty, nourishment, and recreation for its residents. The soil in Edgecombe is rich, and many of the friendly souls who live here-and whose families are rooted here-own unique memories of the county's yesteryears.

Edgecombe Remembers is a window into Southern life over the past 80 years. In this volume, community locals offer readers a variety of journeys-from a 1930s tobacco farm to the activities of homemakers from the 1970s. Early 20th-century Christmases were celebrated with different customs, while education was a privilege not available to everyone. World War II, an especially difficult time for Americans, is an event that those who remember speak of with the joys of patriotism and the tenderness of heartache. The people whom these voices represent may not have been rich in material wealth, but they lived rich, full lives with what was available.

Edgecombe County is a unique combination of beautiful pastoral scenery and strong, interesting
people. Communities like Pinetops, Whitakers, Speed, Leggett, and Conetoe provide an excellent insight into the struggles and triumphs of traditional
American small towns. In this highly anticipated
second volume, you will explore the social identity of Edgecombe County by taking visual tours of several
historic neighborhoods, schools, and churches. As with any successful region, Edgecombe County's greatest resource is its people, for the area has provided a wealth of talented citizens to the political arena, military battlefronts, the playing fields of professional sports, and the artistic community. This collection of images also honors the countless men and women who persevered through the county's periods of war, depression, and natural disaster and continued to support one another in times of need and adversity.

Before the Civil War, diverse groups brought their skills to the wild back country and formed the first population of Greensboro amid forests and farmland. The rapid growth of railroads, industry, and educational institutions contributed to the ongoing development of a modern city.

Walking along the streets of downtown Greensboro today, we are constantly reminded of those who came before us. Their names grace the city's street signs,
businesses, plaques, buildings, and markers, demonstrating to us the extreme growth that has taken place in the 190-year-old history of this, one of North Carolina's most-loved cities. With over two hundred rare images, many never before published, Greensboro takes readers on a delightful journey back to the days when this small town was transformed
from a quiet village to a thriving city referred to as both "the denim capital of America," because of its mill; and "the Hartford of the South," due to its insurance industry. Among these pages we meet prominent citizens like the Cones, who founded a textile empire; writer O. Henry; First Lady Dolley Madison; and the famous Greensboro Four, who challenged segregation with their sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter in 1960. We also visit with everyday people who grew up here and worked in the mills or downtown shops and firms.

Before Guilford County's formal establishment in 1771, legions of brave pioneers, such as English Quakers, German Lutherans, and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, journeyed the Great Wagon Road from points north to find religious freedom and new opportunity within North Carolina's virgin frontier. From the vision and perseverance of these early families flourished the communities of Jamestown, Gibsonville, Pleasant Garden, Stokesdale, Summerfield, and eventually the larger urban centers of Greensboro and High Point.

With over 100 black-and-white illustrations and photographs, Guilford County: Heart of the Piedmont traces the fascinating story of one of North Carolina's most historic piedmont counties, from small backcountry settlements to the large industrial complexes scattered across today's landscape. Within this work, readers will experience the dramatic changes to the county traditions and practices as modes of transportation evolve and industry expands to provide new luxuries and new opportunities. Putting a human face on the county's past, this illustrated history recalls memorable county luminaries such as former governor John Motley Morehead, cotton mill magnate Henry Humphries, and Vick's VapoRub entrepreneur Lunsford Richardson Sr. and allows today's generation to see their contributions to Guilford County's culture and commerce over the decades.

In the mid-1800s, wealthy farmers and businessmen began bringing their families to North Carolina’s Outer Banks to escape the blistering inland summer heat.

Soon after, the region’s first hotel was built with accommodations for 200 guests. By the mid-1900s, hotels such as the Carolinian, the Nags Header, and the Arlington as well as smaller motels and cottage courts like Journey’s End, the Sea Foam, and the Cavalier dotted the coastline. Most motels were independent, family-run operations. Many guests returned yearly, reuniting with the motel owners and other visitors. However, by the end of the 20th century, many of these mom-and-pop establishments had become a distant memory, lost to wrecking balls and replaced by large beach houses. This book recalls these hotels and motels and their impact on the Outer Banks and its visitors.

Author Elizabeth Ownley Cooper grew up in Nags Head, where her parents owned the Vacationer Motel from 1964 to 2000. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she is a freelance writer and public relations consultant in Suffolk, Virginia. Most of the images in this book are from the Outer Banks History Center as well as private collections.

Famed as "the Grand Canyon of the East," the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area is a rugged tract of more than 12,000 acres located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. Native Americans once referred to the Linville River as Eeseeoh, or "River of Cliffs," a name that accurately describes the river as it twists its way through the gorge under sheer rock faces and distinctive craggy peaks. Since the Native American ambush of the William Linville hunting party in 1766, the gorge has continued to make headlines with everything from movie filming to fatal accidents and forest fires. Today visitors flock to the natural attraction and enjoy a seemingly pristine, unexplored forest canyon. But the Linville Gorge has much more to offer than just breathtaking scenery. Its rich history has been documented by photographers since the 1870s, and it is through these old photographs that adventure seekers of the past are linked with nature enthusiasts of the present.

Manteo embraces the northern part of Roanoke Island, the historic island inset from North Carolina's Outer Banks. It is best known as the site of Sir Walter Raleigh's first settlement in the New World. In the early 1800s, the town was a small, unnamed fishing village on Shallowbag Bay. Roughly 300 years after the colonists mysteriously disappeared, the town was named Manteo after the Native American who befriended the settlers and was baptized by them. The peaceful life enjoyed by islanders radically changed when they were overwhelmed by Union army troops, Confederate prisoners, and 3,000 former slaves who made up the Freedmen's Colony during the Civil War. In 1899, Manteo incorporated and became the commercial and governmental center of Dare County. National recognition came several decades later in 1937 with the production of Paul Green's outdoor drama The Lost Colony. Manteo has undergone many timely and creative renovations, including an ambitious project that culminated in 1984 with the celebration of our nation's 400th anniversary on the island where America first began.

Oakdale Cotton Mills, in continuous operation in rural Jamestown since 1865, began as Logan Manufacturing Company immediately after the Civil War. Its primary backer, Cyrus P. Mendenhall, was a descendant of Jamestown's early Quaker settler James Mendenhall. In the late 1880s, the mill's ownership moved to the Ragsdale family, which still owns it five generations later. Oakdale's mill village dates from the same period. Some families have lived and worked at Oakdale for multiple generations, developing a culture based on mutual trust and respect. As the mill struggles to compete with overseas products and as the number of employees dwindles, it is clear that a way of life and an industrial era are ending.

Around 1919, George Weston left New York to return to his boyhood home in the Arden-Fletcher area of Western North Carolina. The US government had recently established Pisgah National Forest by purchasing 80,000 acres from Edith, George Vanderbilt's widow; lands deserted by logging companies; and other tracts. While superintendent of farms at the Biltmore Estate, Weston had admired those mountainous landscapes. About two miles from Mount Pisgah and a mile from Vanderbilt's private Buck Spring Lodge, Weston constructed Pisgah Inn on property leased from the US Forest Service. Visitors came from across the country and around the world to stay and dine at Pisgah Inn. By the 1940s, the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway brought drastic changes across the narrow, isolated Pisgah ridgeline. Today, a more modern 1960s lodge welcomes guests to its grand views and preserves the history, charm, and natural setting of the original Pisgah Inn.

While most mill towns have gone by the wayside, the town of Saxapahaw has flourished with sustainable practices and has become a town that others like to mimic. Saxapahaw, which means "rocks on the Haw," was first settled by the Sissipahaw Indians. For 150 years, the heart of this town was driven by a cotton mill that forever closed its doors in 1994 when a rare tornado ripped through the mill. Visionary entrepreneur John M. Jordan and his two sons, "Mac" and Carter, gave life back to the town when they purchased the mill, gave it a face-lift, and made way for affordable lofts, condos, a gym, and small businesses. Through more than 200 photographs, readers will enjoy learning about the hometown of the beloved Sen. B. Everett Jordan, the benevolent benefactor John M. Jordan, and how the town of Saxapahaw has been progressively embracing a sensibly green lifestyle.

Modern-day conveniences and luxuries appeared like the inventions of science fiction in a place where electricity seemed, at first, unnecessary and short-sighted to many of the coastal inhabitants, who were simply comfortable living in the ways and manners of their ancestors. However, the progress offered by the twentieth century would not be denied even in rural Carteret County. Though fishing remained the industrial backbone, as it had for generations of Down Easterners, Carteret County began a remarkable transition from a coastal outpost community to a tourist destination, attracting thousands of seasonal and year-round tourists. The Crystal Coast documents this time through a collection of firsthand accounts that touch upon the many elements of everyday living, including childhood games, early schooling (from both the students' and teachers' perspectives), daily chores, the toils of fishing, the intricacies of home remedies (such as the ubiquitous cure-alls castor-oil and corn liquor), a variety of cooking techniques, courtship and marriage, and life around town. Not just a simple time, these years were marked by major cultural events, and the people of Carteret County were not immune, experiencing intimately the hardships of Depression-era America and the challenges and fears of a world war at their doorstep. Sharing both the black and white experience, this volume, with over 100 images, celebrates a special place and people in the Southern landscape. A unique visual history, The Crystal Coast allows readers a rare opportunity to venture into the Morehead City, Beaufort, and Portsmouth Island of a bygone era, viewing not only the region's vivid past, but breathing its true essence.

Nicknamed "Twin City'?, Winston-Salem is a city full of dualities.

The city of Winston-Salem is the product of the merging of two neighboring towns: the industrial, business-orientated town of Winston, and the religious, historical town of Salem. When the city of Winston-Salem formed in 1913, the combination pooled the strengths of both towns, defining the character of this city. Today, Winston-Salem is the fifth most-populous cities in North Carolina, and has been listed among the top ten cities to retire in the United States.

Wilbur and Orville Wright made the world's first successful controlled, heavier-than-air powered flight on December 17, 1903, after four years of glider experiments and scientific study. At what is now the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the brothers discovered and developed the fundamental principles of mechanical flight, setting in motion a series of events that allowed the first generation of flight to travel from Kitty Hawk to the moon in the lifetime of a human being. Located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, and administered by the National Park Service, the Wright Brothers National Memorial features a full-scale reproduction of the 1903 flying machine, an engine block from the original 1903 flyer, and a precise reproduction of the wind tunnel that the Wrights used to conduct their early experiments. Today, the park's mission is to commemorate the Wrights' success and to interpret the continuing worldwide significance of their dream, vision, and achievement.