What Was The Name Of The Roman Capital City Changed To In The Early 1900's?

[photo] Sketch of Joel Lane House
Courtesy of NC Office of Athenaeum and History

Raleigh was established as the capital letter of North Carolina about the geographical center of the state in 1792. A Land Convention in 1788 sought a key location for an "unalterable seat of government." One yard acres of land was purchased from Joel Lane, an early settler of the region. Lane and his two brothers had come up to the area in 1741, and 30 years later on Wake County was established with the structure of a courthouse and jail on the hillside in front of Lane's residence. His home became such a popular terminate with travelers through the region that Lane built a tavern and helped erect a log church building, the Asbury Meetinghouse. This pocket-size settlement, known equally Wake Courthouse or Bloomsbury, was the predecessor of the town of Raleigh.

Raleigh was surveyed and planned past William Christmas in April 1792, with Union (now Capitol) Square reserved for the statehouse in the center, from which the principal streets radiate. Streets were named for the eight state districts--each identified by the name of its principal city--for the commissioners and for other prominent citizens. The programme included four parks--named for the first 3 Governors (Nash, Caswell and Burke) and for Attorney Full general Alfred Moore. A brick statehouse was synthetic according to the instructions of the committee of legislators. When it was completed in 1794, Raleigh was said to be a "city of streets without houses." By 1800 the population numbered 669, and during that year, Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury held a "large meeting" in the statehouse, which at the time was used for religious gatherings, balls and public meetings.

[photo] State Capitol edifice, completed in 1840
Photo courtesy of N Carolina Division of Archives and History

Destructive fires occurred in 1818, 1821 and 1831. In the last burn down, the brick statehouse was destroyed. In 1840 a three-mean solar day commemoration, with parades, orations and balls marked the completion of the new State Capitol. Raleigh's commercial expansion remained irksome until the 1850s by which time two railroad lines were continued to the city--the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad and the Due north Carolina Railroad. In 1857, the city limits were extended approximately iii blocks on all sides from the original one foursquare-mile purlieus.

Although in that location was Union sentiment in Raleigh, a celebration occurred when the State convention voted to secede from the United States on May twenty, 1861. The Land Capitol served every bit the meeting place for the state'due south wartime legislatures, and the urban center became a concentration bespeak for Confederate troops. General William T. Sherman's army entered Raleigh on April 13, 1865, get-go the occupation of the city by the Federal army. Troops were encamped around the city and Gen. Sherman established headquarters in the Governor's Palace. Later war's terminate, the difficult menses of Reconstruction began.

[photo] 1872 birdseye view of the City of Raleigh. View loftier resolution map by clicking here.
Photograph courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, digital id g3904r pm006660

An 1872 birdseye view of the City of Raleigh (right) shows the arrangement of the community shortly subsequently the Civil War. The commercial section emerged along Fayetteville Street, just south of the State Capitol. Foundries, factories and warehouses were located nigh the tracks on the north and due west sides of town. The remaining spaces inside the metropolis limits were occupied with boarding houses, individual residences and three hotels inhabited past poor and wealthy, black and white, young and onetime. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Raleigh'south public and private sector leaders were adamant to improve the cityscape to their reward. Proximity to surface transportation spelled success for merchants in the form of shops and warehouses, stables and hotels. City alderman established streetcar lines and community leaders enlarged churches. Businessmen endeavored to make Raleigh a prosperous city before the turn of the 20th century.

[photo] Raleigh H2o Tower
Photograph from National Register of Historic Places collection

A disquisitional chemical element to Raleigh's future growth was the provision of a stable, drinkable water supply. From its founding in 1792, until the municipal water works went into functioning, Raleigh depended on springs, wells and cisterns for its h2o supply. The Raleigh Water Works circuitous, built in 1887 at the 1800 block of Fayetteville Street, was designed by civil engineer Arthur Winslow. Filtered h2o was fed to the 2,500,000 gallon holding reservoir. A 14-inch main carried water to the city and elevated storage was provided past a water tower. By the early 1900s, the h2o supply system had expanded to cover the entire urban center.

Besides the provision of h2o another assiduities which was lauded by Raleigh'due south public and private sectors was transportation. The electrified streetcar in the capital city did not materialize until 1891, but for 5 years before this, mule-drawn, open up-sided vehicles ran short routes in the square mile. Although Raleigh was ane of the get-go cities in North Carolina to possess the technology for the creation of electric ability, the city's arrangement foundered repeatedly. In the 1890s and 1900s, streetcars, street lighting and the power for newly located textile mills were the only uses to which electricity could be practical. Streetcars were a handy and relatively inexpensive justification for electrification requiring merely a few large motors and auxiliary equipment plus the cost of generators and body lines. Raleigh's electric service was preparing for rapid expansion by 1908, when Raleigh Electric Visitor merged with 2 other regional suppliers to form Carolina Ability & Light Company (CP&50), now Progress Energy. A new Power House was constructed almost 1910 to ability the electric streetcar system and a new streetcar garage was congenital in 1925, where cars were stored and repaired. The electric streetcar revolutionized transportation technology. Traversing and skirting the key concern district, the tracks opened upwards a suburban ring and enabled the electric trains to travel fast, near four times faster than the horse-drawn systems they replaced.

[photo] St.Mary'due south College
Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [pan 6a16529]

In addition to being North Carolina's capital, Raleigh emerged as an educational heart in the 19th century. St. Mary'south College, founded in 1842 by the Episcopal Church, is the oldest continuously operating schoolhouse in Raleigh and the third oldest school for girls in North Carolina. The Peace Institute was incorporated in 1858 as a Presbyterian-affiliated school for young women. Ane of the earliest public education facilities in Raleigh was the N.C. School for the Blind and Deaf (1848). An agricultural and industrial college, the N.C. Agriculture Experiment Station, was founded in 1877. X years subsequently, the General Assembly established the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, which became North Carolina Land Academy in 1917. Educational institutions for African Americans such as Shaw University (established 1865) and St. Augustine'south College (established in 1867) attracted increasing numbers of black students, staff and faculty to Raleigh.

[photo] Narrow lots and small-scale front yards are typical in the Oakwood Historic District
Photograph by Elizabeth Aisle, courtesy of Raleigh Historic Development Committee

In the closing decades of the 19th century, some of the city's leading educators lived in Oakwood, an area created from wooded state northeast of the city. The Oakwood neighborhood borrowed its proper name from the nearby cemetery and was the get-go commune in Raleigh solely created to be an exclusive residential suburb. Many prominent citizens congenital and lived in the fine one-and ii-story, frame and brick Victorian fashion dwellings reflecting the primarily center-class tastes of the era. Residents of the neighborhood were employed in the banking and law firms in the central business district, the local and state governments, and the educational facilities. Oakwood remained a bastion of the middle course through the early 20th century. Laborers and skilled workers were also drawn to Raleigh in search of employment. The domiciles that were constructed past and for them are typical of those institute throughout the Southern region of the land. The one- and 2-story frame houses situated in Raleigh'due south African American neighborhoods include Queen Anne sytle cottages, shotguns and Triple-As.

[photo] Masonic Temple Building
Photo by Michael Zirkle Photography, courtesy of Raleigh Historic Development Commission

Between 1900 and the showtime of World War I, the composition of Raleigh'south urban and suburban sections fluctuated as urban center leaders sought to mold the image of the uppercase city of Due north Carolina. The structure of hospitals, schools, churches and residences added diversity to the urban fabric. Cloth product and railroad traffic were expanding in Raleigh. In 1903 alone 65 buildings were nether construction worth a total value of $300,000. New tall office buildings of vii and 10 stories began to tower higher up the 19th century two- and three-story stores downtown. From 1874 to 1907 the tallest building besides the 85-pes-high water tower had been the Briggs Hardware Edifice, a 4-story, cherry-red brick, apartment-roofed, commercial building with stamped metal trim. In 1908, the seven-story Masonic Temple became the first building in the state to apply new technological changes and innovations that were completely modernizing the traditional structure and arrangement of the building manufacture. Designed by S Carolina architect Charles McMillan, the stone-faced building of reinforced concrete and steel exemplifies skyscraper compages begun in Chicago in the 1880s which continued as a type into the mid-20th century.

Raleigh's population increased 79 percentage from 1900 (13,643 people) to 1920 (24,418 people). With a utility infrastructure firmly entrenched, water, electricity and cheap transportation provided better living conditions. Proximity to utilities permitted industrial endeavors to locate in or nearly the urban center limits. The surface transportation and a centralized, semi-skilled urban labor force were additional incentives to attracting textile mills in the final decade of the 19th century. Professionals such as educators, attorneys, physicians and entrepreneurs were enticed to the city as growth in commerce, wellness care and education increased. Raleigh'southward educational institutions for blacks and whites, men and women, and facilities for the handicapped attracted families to the urban center from other parts of the state. This influx of people necessitated the evolution of new or existing residential areas, which lead to the growth of Raleigh'south suburbs in the early to mid-20th century.

Essay primarily excerpted from Raleigh Comprehensive Architectural Survey Last Study, Helen Patricia Ross, Raleigh Historic Development Commission, 1992.