Introduction
You can tell something about Cumberland County's history just by grabbing a handful of soil - one small sampling from a county that covers 652.4 square miles - and taking a closer look.
CONTENTS
1754-1779: Cumberland County is carved from the backcountry of Bladen County
1780-1804: The town of Fayetteville takes root
1805-1829: Fayetteville population is second only to Wilmington's
1830-1854: A city rises from the ashes as political fires build
1855-1879: Slavery is ended, but some freedom's remain elusive
1880-1904: The turn of the century brings change
1905-1929: Downtown Fayetteville gets big buildings, and Camp Bragg is established in the Sandhills
1930-1954: Cumberland County's population doubles as Fort Bragg booms
50 years ago: In 1954, Cumberland County celebrates its bicentennial in style
1955-1979: The county deals with explosive growth and volatile issues of race and war
1980-2004: Downtown makes a comeback, and Fayetteville expands its boundaries
Then & Now: Here's a look at how far we've come in daily living
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The soil may be sandy. These are the North Carolina Sandhills, after all. The terrain is good for longleaf pines, the trees that fueled the turpentine industry after settlers began clearing their way through the woods in the 1700s.
Cumberland soil is also good for cotton, tobacco and corn. They have been staples of the county's agriculture heritage for more than two centuries. The cotton provided the raw material for the textiles that were made from one mill to another, from Manchester to Massey Hill to Rockfish, before that chapter in our commercial history spun out for good.
The sandy hills and piney woods are what drew the Army here, during World War I, to establish an artillery camp. That has developed into the Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base that we know today. When 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers cascade down over one of Fort Bragg's drop zones, they're landing mostly on sand.
The soil in your hand may also have bits of asphalt. That's because much of the county has been paved over and developed, particularly during the past 50 years. The county has sprouted thousands of homes and miles of roads and one retail center after another, all to support a population of 312,000 residents and others who come here to visit, work and shop.
But all is not sand and asphalt. And not all of the county's natural heritage has been lost. Sift through another handful of dirt, from along the banks of one of the county's many streams, and you can detect more about Cumberland's past.
Maybe you're standing alongside the Cape Fear River, the source for virtually everything that the county has become - settlement, transportation, commerce and drinking water. The soil in your hand may contain some clay deposited by the river from its Piedmont beginnings as it made its muddy-brown way through the Coastal Plain and on to the sea. You can just imagine what the first settlers must have felt when climbing these banks in hopes of establishing a home in the Carolina backcountry.
You can also walk alongside Cross Creek, holding bits of rock amid another handful of dirt and sand, and see how this creek - at times fast-moving and almost mountainous in character - could have led to that first gristmill, then to a small colonial settlement and then to a town that became Fayetteville.
That's just a sampling of what you can find when digging into Cumberland County's past. It is a rich history worth exploring and telling again and again, 250 years and counting since its formation as a county in 1754.
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