- Title
- State
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- Date
- January 03 1953
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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State
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This Growing North Carolina
Here’s an architect’s drawing of one of North Carolina’s many new business buildings — this one a quarter-million dollar
office for Southern Fire Insurance Company and five other insurance firms at Durham.
Const ruction is such a big' business in this
section that the Carolines have the largest
contractors* organization in America.
By CARL GOERCII
North Carolina has made phe¬
nomenal progress in recent years —
industrially, educationally, agricultur¬
ally, and in many other ways.
This progress has been shared by
the mountain country, the busy Pied¬
mont area, and by the eastern part of
the state. Used to be that most of the
large manufacturing industries were
confined to a comparatively small
area in the central part of North Caro¬
lina, but this is no longer the case: in¬
dustrial plants have sprouted up in all
sections and are continuing to do so.
Some of our biggest manufacturing
plants arc in the heart of the moun¬
tain country: Champion Paper &
Fibre Company, Ecusla Paper Cor¬
poration, Enka Corporation, Beacon
Blankets, and so on. Down in the
Coastal Plain section there also arc a
number of large manufacturing enter¬
prises, including paper mills at Roa¬
noke Rapids, Plymouth, and near
Wilmington; the big Dupont plant at
Kinston and many others.
Wherever you travel, you see con¬
struction work of all kinds in progress
— new homes, business and office
buildings, hospitals, schools, factories,
power plants, bridges, roads, water
and sewage facilities, highway paving.
and many other items. They all con¬
tribute to making North Carolina a
wealthier and more progressive state,
resulting in the employment of tens of
thousands of people, the production of
increasing quantities of goods, im¬
proved transportation, and better liv¬
ing conditions for everyone.
Who's responsible for all this?
Your state government . . . large in¬
dustrial corporations . . . civic groups
. . . the people themselves.
That's true, but when it comes to
actual construction work, it's the con¬
tractor, of course.
We don’t have the actual figures but
we’re of the opinion that a billion dol¬
lars worth of construction work — in¬
cluding paving — was done in North
Carolina in the last year or so. That
sounds like a mighty big figure, and
it is, but when you take into con¬
sideration just a few projects, we don’t
believe that it is very far out of the
way; projects like the veterans' hospi¬
tal at Salisbury and a number of other
hospitals in various sections of the
state, the new power units built by
Carolina Power & Light Company and
Duke Power Company, dozens of new-
industrial plants and schoolhouscs,
port facilities at Wilmington and
Morchcad City, the substantial expan¬
sion at Fort Bragg. Cherry Point and
Camp Lcjeune, and so on.
No, sir; when you come to think of
it. we believe you'll agree that a bil¬
lion dollars would be a conservative
estimate.
Contracting could be made a hodge¬
podge sort of affair in North Carolina
if each contractor worked by himself
and confined himself entirely to his
own business. But, like in every other
line of business, the contractors in this
area have discovered the value of co¬
operation. They arc members of the
Carolinas Branch of the Associated
General Contractors of America, the
largest group of contractors in the
country. Practically all of the well-
known contractors in North and South
Carolina arc members. And, to insure
still further co-operation, most of the
material and supply people in this area
arc associate members.
Let's give a look at some of the con¬
struction projects outstanding in this
state.
Heading the list probably is the
work done in the military areas al¬
ready mentioned. There's always a
vast amount of new work going on
there. Visit any college campus and
THE STATE, January 3. 19S3
27
