[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 106 (Thursday, June 28, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF LEE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

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                           HON. BOB ETHERIDGE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 27, 2007

  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor the centennial 
celebration of Lee County, North Carolina, in my congressional 
district. Lee County was created from portions of Moore and Chatham 
Counties on March 6, 1907 and became an official county July 2, 1907.
  Lee County was named for General Robert E. Lee commanding general of 
the Confederate forces during the American Civil War and it is North 
Carolina's 98th county. The city of Sanford, named in honor of railroad 
engineer Col. Charles Ogburn Sanford, is the county seat. The county's 
early economy centered on agriculture, naval stores, and an iron works. 
Just prior to the Civil War in about 1853, the first commercial 
exploration of the area's coal veins was begun in the community of 
Egypt, now Cumnock. During the war, the coal was transported to 
Fayetteville on the Western Railroad, which had been built by slaves 
and immigrant Irish laborers. Once in Fayetteville, the coal was taken 
by boat on the Cape Fear River to the port of Wilmington. The Western 
Railroad extended to the town of Jonesboro, named after Col. Leonidas 
Campbell Jones.
  After the war, the Raleigh and Augusta Air Line Railroad built 
southward and crossed the Western Railroad tracks. At this junction and 
passenger point, the rail-born village of Sanford grew. The city was 
incorporated in Moore County in 1874, and its population in 1880 was 
236 persons. The County of Lee was formed through a bill passed by the 
General Assembly in 1907. Wagon and buggy travel through the sands from 
Sanford to Carthage, the county seat of Moore, was too laborious and 
time consuming for the busy people of the railway junction. A new 
county with a convenient governmental seat needed to be formed. This 
was given overwhelming approval by a vote of area residents. Sanford's 
population in 1910 totaled 2,262 persons.
  After 1907, with railroad and a new county government, Lee County 
began a period of rapid growth. The economy flourished with new 
industries including tobacco harvesting, brownstone quarrying, 
furniture making, brick works, and later textiles. By 1930 the county 
population numbered 13,400 people. After World War II, in 1947, the 
cities of Sanford and Jonesboro merged. The 1950 census of the city 
counted 10,013 residents while the population of Lee County was 23,522 
persons. Like much of my Congressional District, Lee County has 
experienced rapid growth in recent years, and today some 56,908 North 
Carolinians live there.
  Madam Speaker, Lee County has always been dear to my family since it 
is the birthplace of my lovely wife Faye Etheridge. It is fitting that 
we take a moment today to honor the centennial celebration of Lee 
County.

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