The Town That
Canines Caused
■h‘llvi<‘U may lit» Ihc snmlUvsl incor¬
porated low
и
in Ihc country.
By rohi:rt L. III JAMS
I hc citizens of Dellview, North
Carolina, arc eagerly awaiting the offi¬
cial results of the 1980 United States
census, and with good reason. It is
possible that the tiny town stuck back
in a remote corner of Gaston County is
the smallest incorporated town in the
entire nation. It is a virtual certainty
that it is the tiniest municipality in the
state of North Carolina.
What has the residents concerned is
the undocumented report that a town
out in Arizona has a population of
three residents, which would make it
less than half the size of Dellview.
which has eight citizens, nearly all of
whom are related to the original Del¬
linger family that founded the town
back in 1925.
Located northwest of Cherryville
and nearly connected with the city
limits of its larger neighbor. Dellview is
barely in the country. Half a mile
further west and it would have been a
pan of Cleveland County.
The town, in addition to its eight
residents, has one brick building, a
chief of police, mayor, and a board of
commissioners. One unique aspect of
Dellview is that the town has had only
one mayor in its entire fifty-five year
history: Mrs. Henry Dellinger, widow’
of one of the founding fathers of the
town. When the town was chartered.
Mrs. Dellinger was named mayor, and
she has kept the post, often against her
wishes and better judgment, since that
time.
Other members of the community
have served as fire chief, police offi¬
cers. and commissioners regularly,
although the titles are just titles: there
is no one who can recall that the police
chief ever had to arrest anyone or that
the mayor ever had to make a weighty
decision. But all eight citizens held of¬
ficial posts, and at one time everyone
who could drive owned a Dodge, a fact
10
that caused the automobile people to
make a trek to Dellview in order to give
nation-wide publicity to the town
where every single person chose to
own the same brand of car.
Dog Raids Thwarted
In the middle of the town there is a
building — the brick one — that was
once a chicken incubator, and in the
exact center of the floor of the building
there is a stake which designates the
precise center of town. The town limits
form a perfect square with 1.500-foot
sides — a total of 52 acres, according to
Her Honor the mayor.
As with every other town. Dellview
had a reason for existing. While some
communities form because of natural
resources, a trade crossroads, a scenic
location, a college, or manufacturing
process. Dellview was formed because
dogs, at least some of them, have a
fondness for chicken meat.
It seems that when the chicken busi¬
ness was thriving, the dogs from
neighboring farms used to come at
night and raid the chicken lots and
carry olT frying sized chickens. The
Dellingers, being law-abiding and
public-spirited people, flatly refused to
resort to a form of vigilante justice and
simply shoot the offending dogs. In¬
stead. they went to David P. Dellinger,
the town's most renowned citizen who
was also a member of the General As¬
sembly. for help, and David P. drew up
the town charter and urged the Assem¬
bly to accept the community as a legal
town.
This done, the mayor and the re¬
mainder of the civic leaders were then
able to pass laws giving them the legal
right to shoot any and all dogs that
devoured or attempted to devour
The Mom tt.eet of DelKiew look» eioctlv lib* whol
(obo*«) The tombstone of Dovid P. Dellinger, who die
erected in 1949. however, Dellinger didn’t die until
it it N C. Highwoy 274 There ore eight reudentt
w up the chorter ter Dell.iew. Hit grove ntorher wot
1957 (photot by Robert L Williams)
THE 8TATE. AUGUST 19*0
