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Wake County History
In 1771 the General Assembly created Wake County from Johnston, Cumberland and Orange counties. Wake County was named for the London heiress Margaret Wake, wife of William Tryon, the Royal Governor of the British colony of North Carolina. The leaders of the state decided to locate the capital of North Carolina here in 1792. Even though Raleigh was the seat of state and county government, it remained a small Southern town until the 1920s, and the surrounding countryside remained primarily rural until after World War II.
From early settlement in the 1730s to around the time of the Civil War, Wake County shared a way of life with most of North Carolina, with scattered, modest-sized farms and sparsely populated communities. Rural localities, each usually containing a church, school, store, gristmill and (by the early 20th century) cotton gin, were the hubs of human activity. Farming families raised and produced most, if not all, of their food and clothing, and few went far from home to sell their extra goods. Following the first settlement, population growth in the county was slow, particularly in the 1820s and 1830s, when many residents moved out of the county to developing areas of the state and nation, where fresh land was plentiful and cheap, and opportunities were better for commercial farming. Beginning in the 1840s, railroad construction slowed down the outward flow of people somewhat by providing some commercial farmers with links to important regional and northern markets; however, although market-oriented agriculture was gaining a foothold, subsistence farming still dominated Wake County rural life.
The six decades between the Civil War and World War I were years of tremendous change in Wake County and throughout North Carolina. Economic pressures, population growth and increased contact with people outside the state began transforming traditional ways of living. The Civil War and Reconstruction altered both white and black labor systems and generated changes in the South's social and economic structures. An economic system based on tenant labor and the commercial production of cotton and tobacco evolved, which brought prosperity to some farmers but led many into poverty. Wake County's rural landscape became decidedly different during these years, as larger farms were divided and subdivided into smaller farms. The cultivation of tobacco required specialized curing and storage barns, the numbers of which grew exponentially as many farmers turned from cotton to tobacco in the early 20th century. Commercial and industrial expansion spread throughout the county as more and more railroads were built to connect Wake to important market centers, and towns were established to serve local commercial needs.
During the years immediately after the Civil War, there were very few large-scale construction projects in rural Wake County, as the county's citizens struggled to recover from the conflict and its resulting economic problems. By the mid-1880s, however, a period of relative prosperity dawned. Subsistence and diversified farming gave way on many farms to single-crop commercial agriculture. Population and the number of farms increased dramatically, and railroads created new towns. At the same time, the size of farms decreased, and the number of families who worked as tenants on the farms of others rose steadily. Tremendous numbers of buildings in the county's rural areas and small towns were built from the 1880s to the 1910s, reflecting the architectural transformation that was a part of these enormous changes. The landscape is densely populated with small farmsteads dating from these years, most with simple, conservative houses and farm buildings. The small towns that grew up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries are, for the most part, artifacts of the development that railroads fostered and that cotton and tobacco markets nurtured.
An agricultural depression during the early 1920s ended the brief period of rural prosperity after World War I. And, as Wake County farmers and townspeople encountered the Great Depression of the 1930s, traditional ways of life began to change more rapidly. Automobiles and better roads encouraged mobility. Federal government limits on cotton and tobacco production levels, as well as the mechanization of farming and the increased use of pesticides, reduced the amount of acreage under cultivation and the number of laborers in the fields. By the time of World War II, a county that was once predominantly rural and agricultural was becoming increasingly urban and oriented toward commercial and industrial interests.
Though increasingly urbanized, the Wake County of today still bears some resemblance to its past appearance. Many areas near the edges of the county remain rural, and family and neighborhood networks are still vital to the social fabric of rural communities. A surprisingly large number of traditional farmhouses and farm buildings and small community churches, schools and stores still dot the landscape, although they are rapidly being replaced or surrounded by subdivisions and shopping centers. Despite all of the growth in recent years, interest in Wake County's rural and small-town heritage thrives, fostered by local historical societies and other public and private groups who promote community pride among old and new residents alike.
– The Historic Architecture of Wake County, North Carolina, by Kelly A. Lally, 1994
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