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look down Roseboro's Iwo main streets of business show "the biggest
little town" in action.
Hustling Roseboro
I i s claim is I lie litle of I lie biggest
lillle Iohii in l\'orlli Carolina and
lliere's a lol of t rut li lo (lie slale-
inent.
By BIIXV
СЛВМ1СНЛЕБ
III
Roseboro. a hustling, bus¬
tling town in Sampson
County, makes the claim of
being “The biggest little town in
North Carolina." If you're thinking
of arguing the point, don't be too
hasty. Roseboro has a strong case.
To begin with, there aren't more
than 1,200 people in the town and
Roseboro isn't the garden spot of
Eastern North Carolina. But if
you're looking for industry, prog¬
ress and community spirit, there
is enough in Roseboro for many
times the population of the town.
Roseboro’s industry comes in a
wide variety of products ranking
from bricks to cotton thread and
on to lumber milling. There are
three large brick concerns in the
town, putting Roseboro in brick
production competition with any
town in the state. Cotton thread
output comes from the large Hill
Spinning Mill, a locally owned and
operated concern. But if it’s num¬
bers that count, lumber milling is
Roseboro's largest single industry
with four major businesses operat¬
ing in this field.
There’s the Denny Veneer Com¬
pany, the Roseboro Milling Com¬
pany, the F. D. & 11. Lumber
Company and W a r r e n-Hcrring
Lumber Company. Partner Her¬
ring, incidentally, was Roseboro’s
outstanding World War II hero,
being a holder of the Congressional
Medal of Honor.
But don't get the idea there’s
nothing in Roseboro worth talking
about but industry. What about
the Brewer-Starling Clinic, known
throughout the region, which gives
the town medical benefits and pro¬
tections you find in few towns of
this size or even manv times
larger?
The clinic specializes in the
treatment of car. eye. nose and
threat ailments -and babies. The
story is that at one time the arrival
rate at the clinic ran so high the
town was toying with debt after
paying clinic personnel to handle
all the birth certificates. A new
state law recently relieved the
town of this burden.
TOWNS OF N. C.
This is the ninth of a scries
of articles dealing with towns
that arc ofT the heaten path
so far as through traffic is con¬
cerned.
The tenth, which will ap¬
pear in an early issue, will
be about Vnndemcrc in Pam¬
lico County.
Debt, by the way. is a word and
a condition from which the citizens
of Roseboro like to steer clear.
They don’t care for bond issues,
nor do they cherish the thoughts
of rising tax rates, but still the
people of the town want progress
and they get it. The method is
simple. When the streets of Rose¬
boro were to be paved, each fellow-
dug down into his ow n pocket and
paid for the area of the street in
front of his property as the pave¬
ment was laid. This meant no
bonds, no higher taxes— simply
paying as you go.
When it became obvious recently
that a new fire house was neces¬
sary for the town, the project was
undertaken in the same way. The
brick companies contributed
bricks, the lumber companies fur¬
nished the lumber, and other busi¬
nesses came through with the rest
of the materials. The construction
labor is to be provided in the same
manner. Thus, when the building
is completed, the town won't owe
a penny on the project.
One of the greatest sources of
pride for the people of Roseboro is
their local school unit. Mostly
destroyed by fire in 1939, the
school plant has been built back
in the past few years into one of
the finest units to be found in the
state public school system. With
pupils feeding in from the sur¬
rounding areas, the school enroll¬
ment this year numbers more than
950. The work of school head 11. P.
Naylor has set the pace in these
rapid gains and progressions, but
Naylor is the first to admit the
support he has received from his
fellow citizens has made a hard
task a good deal easier.
Roseboro is a comparatively
И
town whose history goes
о
the days before the turn of
the century when the railroad first
came through. There are several
stories concerning how- the town
was named, but the most reliable
seems to be told by Mr. Jim Hall,
postmaster of Roseboro for the
past 52 years, who probably knows
more about the town than any one
else.
Mr. Jim says there was a time
back in the 1880's when Roseborc
was nothing more than a cross¬
roads. Nearby was a bottom filled
with persimmon trees, caterpillar
nests and a single beautiful rose
bush. There is one version that the
railroad was built around the bush
rather than destroy it, but Mr. Jim
says there’s nothing to this ac¬
count. The elderly postmaster re¬
lates that a depot was built near
THE STATE. June lO. 1950
