Place Information
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Albemarle is the county seat of Stanly County, North Carolina . The population was 15,680 at the 2000 census. It is governed by Mayor Elbert L. "Whit" Whitley, Jr. (who was re-elected in 2005 after a twenty-eight year hiatus from the same position) and a seven-member City Council.
History
Ancient and ColonialThe site of modern-day Albemarle was originally peopled by small tribes of hunter-gatherers and Mound Builders whose artifacts and settlements have been dated back nearly 10,000 years. Large-scale European settlement of the region came in the mid-1700s via two primary waves: immigrants of Dutch, Scotch-Irish and German descent moved from Pennsylvania and New Jersey seeking enhanced religious and political tolerance, while immigrants of English backgrounds came to the region from Virginia and the Cape Fear River Basin in Eastern North Carolina. In early English colonial times, the Albemarle area was politically part of the New Hanover Precinct, out of which the Bladen Precinct was created in 1734. The renamed Bladen County was subdivided to create Anson County in 1750, which in turn spawned Montgomery County in 1779. The Establishment of Stanly County and AlbemarleThe Albemarle region's first post office was established in 1826; it was then known as Smith's Store. The nearby crossroads of the Old Turnpike Road from Fayetteville to Salisbury and the Old Stage Road connecting Charlotte and Raleigh emerged as an important hub for regional commerce and trade. The region remained part of Montgomery County until 1841, when in the aftermath of the destruction of Montgomery County's courthouse by fire, prominent residents of the increasingly populous areas west of the Yadkin/Pee Dee River system successfully petitioned the North Carolina General Assembly for the establishment of Stanly County as an independent entity. Soon after the new County was formed, its Board of Commissioners was tasked with establishing a permanent county seat within eight miles of the home of Eben Hearne (the County's first sheriff), and with laying out a new town, in which a courthouse would be erected [1]. Nehemiah Hearne donated 51 acres from his plantation near the intersection of the Old Turnpike and Old Stage Roads for the construction of the new County Seat. The County Commissioners established the town's boundaries, laid out streets and surveyed and marked parcels of property within Hearne's donated land. The first land lot sale financed the new town's public buildings and paid some part of the elected official’s salaries. The courthouse was erected in 1842 and used for 50 years. The City of Albemarle was formally incorporated in 1857. It was named for the Duke of Albemarle, George Monck, one of the Lords Proprietors granted the province of Carolina in 1663 by King Charles II. Economic HistoryThe Albemarle region’s early economic growth was fueled by agriculture (with cotton as the primary crop), regional mercantile trade and a short-lived gold rush in the nearby Uwharrie Mountains, all later supplanted by textile manufucturing. The Efird Manufacturing Co. (later American and Efird Mills) opened its first mill in Albemarle in the 1896, and was followed soon thereafter by the Wiscasset Mill Company, the Cannon Mill Company, the Lillian Knitting Mill and others. In 1899, Wiscassett Mills Company established Cabarrus Bank and Trust, the first bank in Albemarle. By 1910, an electrical distribution plan for the City was underway. Textile mills remained a crucial part of Albemarle’s economy until the 1980s. The Yadkin Railroad began rail service to Albermarle from Salisbury in 1891. In 1911, the Winston Salem Southbound Railway (WSS) constructed its own line through Albemarle to support the booming textile and market, eventually driving the Yadkin Railroad into obsolescence. [2]. The WSS still provides freight service through Albemarle, but since 1933 there has been no passenger service to the city. (The Old Market Street Station on the WSS line has been restored, and is now the site of a popular Farmer's Market. The railbed of the Yadkin Railroad has been ripped up and paved over, though a one mile segment of its route south of Albermarle now serves as a hiking trail in Rock Creek Park). In 1923, a state contract was let to construct NC-24/27 to Charlotte, the first paved highway out of Albemarle. In 1950, Stanly County Memorial Hospital opened on land donated by Wiscassett Mills. Historic PreservationAlbemarle was recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a National Main Street City in 2005. There are a number of historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects in its downtown that have been recently completed or are underway, including an initiative to create a greenway linking many of the City's parks and historic sites. The Freeman-Marks House, built in 1835, is the oldest known surviving house in Albemarle. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, along with the Romanesque Revival Opera House/Starnes Jewelers Building (1908) and three small historic districts in the City's downtown area. Another important historic property is the Isaiah W. "Buck" Snuggs House, an antebellum home on Third Street then owned and now named for a Stanly County sheriff who lost his leg in the Civil War Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. The Stanly County Museum [3] in Albemarle provides a focal point for regional historic research and preservation. Research Tips
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