IJV BATTLE
ЛЯП
BUSib'ESS
ALAMANCE DOESN'T WAIT
How pioneering' free enterprise,
locally practiced, has created one
of Xorth Carolina's most prosper¬
ous sections.
By IIIIJ, SHARPE
Historians pul it in more dignified
words, but something like this took
place on the banks of Great Alamance
Creek in 1837, An ambitious farm
youngster named Edwin M. Holt ap¬
proached his father one day and said:
"I've been thinking. Been thinking
I'll build me a cotton mill, if you'll
help out."
His father jerked the straw out of
his mouth. "Build you a what? Son,
what's ailing you? There’s nobody
within a hundred miles of here who
can run a cotton mill. Include me out."
But young Holt had a strong non¬
conformist Alamance streak in him.
He next approached William Carrigan,
his brother-in-law, and the two of them
pooled meagre resources and opened
the mill — the fourth textile plant to
be erected in North Carolina. It was
during a depression — they called
them panics in those days — but the
mill survived, and soon its yarns were
being sold as far away as Philadelphia.
Holt’s father, like a typical Ala-
mancer, was proud of his son’s success,
and joined the firm. It was one of
scores which have started and have
flourished in Alamance County in
about the same way.
Independent People
Nowhere else in this state will you
find a people more self-reliant, inde¬
pendent and antagonistic to absentee
paternalism. It is a hotbed of free en¬
terprisers, and it is easy to sec why.
The majority of the industrial and com¬
mercial firms in Alamance arc the di¬
rect outgrowth of venture, locally
inspired, financed and managed. In
other sections there arc larger local¬
ly-grown industries, but in no other
county so many of them. From its
beginning. Alamance has seen the re¬
wards of hard work, daring, and inde¬
pendence. and it likes what it has seen.
Alamance has followed that rather
vague course called the American Way
of Life, except that here it is not a
document in a museum, but an organ¬
ism in a laboratory.
The course led with breath-taking
rapidity to a highly industrialized
county, and, in some respects, the
state's most prosperous. It has fewer
"poor folks" than any county in North
Carolina, with only 34.8 per cent of
Л
large percentage of Alamance's
«omen arc in industry, boosting that
county’s per family income.
the families having an income of less
than $2,000 per year. By comparison,
53.1 per cent of North Carolina’s fam¬
ilies arc in this low-income group.
While predominantly a textile sec¬
tion, Alamance in recent years has
had a balancing growth. The largest
new acquisition is Western Electric’s
plant, employing around 2,900 at Bur¬
lington. Other industries range from
furniture to coffins.
The more than 175 industrial es¬
tablishments and a thrifty agriculture
and trade support a high living
standard, with an average manufac¬
turing wage of $58.60. The 1950 cen¬
sus gives the median (middle family)
income as $2,667 as against a state
average of $1.864. Only one county.
Mecklenburg, has a higher family in¬
come. Recent figures from private sur¬
veys show Alamance families in 1951
had an average effective buying in¬
come of $4.910, making it the second
quality market in the state. Per capita
county income is $1,284.
The county ranks 9th in population.
9th in retail sales. 9th in total effective
buying income. 5th in effective buying
income per family.
The statistics are not as interesting
as the qualities which produced them,
because Alamance people not only turn
their profits and progeny back into
more factories. They behave like
people who not only want to make a
good living, but also want to live in a
good community while doing so. In
Alamance at least, a successful and
THE STATE. Vol. XX: No. SO. Entered a* *econd-elaw matter. June 1. 1933. at the
РОПоГПее
at Raleigh. North Carolina, under the act of
March 3. 1879. Published by Sharpe Publlihlng Co.. Inc., Lawyer* Bid*., Ralelth, N. C. Copyright. I9S3. by the Sharpe rubUUilne Co.. Inc.
