1905-1929
Dowtown Fayetteville gets big buildings, Camp Bragg established in Sandhills
You could put aside what happened one fateful day in 1918, when the Army firmly set its sights on the Carolina Sandhills, and still consider this period through the 1920s to be full of notable developments.
In no certain order, they included:
Record rains in 1908 flooded Fayetteville, with the Cape Fear River rising to within a block of the Market House, a historic flood that would not be topped until 1945.
Hoke County was carved from Cumberland and Robeson counties in 1911.
Immigration brought variety to Fayetteville's business class. The Steins from Lithuania and Fleishmans from Latvia were among the earliest Jewish merchants, starting in the 1900s. A number of Greek families arrived and established restaurants, a business tradition that continues.
Organized sports, particularly baseball, gained in popularity. And in 1914, playing in a minor-league game in Fayetteville, George Herman Ruth hit his first professional home run and acquired his famous nickname, "Babe."
In the 1920s, a new county courthouse, the eight-story Prince Charles Hotel and the 10-story National Bank of Fayetteville building (later First Citizens) were among the developments that changed the look of downtown.
Then there was the war, the "Great War," or "the war to end all wars," later known as World War I. It took the lives of 39 Cumberland County servicemen. It affected hundreds of others and their families.
And in June 1918, it led Army representatives to search for a suitable place with enough land to practice artillery.
They found it in the pine forests and rolling hills outside Fayetteville - a place soon to be known as Camp Bragg, and later as Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base.
Water from the Cape Fear River reached Person Street during the 1908 flood. |
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