State

Onslow . . . The Big Change Her** sh«* romps — /.ip! — Ihrrr she goes — Ifll.s the slorj' «if u coanly which almost ro- placcd its population in one generation. Bj/ MIX SHARPE For nearly 250 years Onslow farmed and fished and hunted beside the sea. Its meagre population had cleared off the most desirable land along the risers and on the ridges, leaving vast forests to deer. hear, turkey and squirrel. The surf rolled upon wide beaches innocent of tourists. The river yielded world-famous oy¬ sters and the hogs world-famous hams. The county seemed heedless of the restless yearning of its neighbors for development. On December 15. 1940, a bulldozer chugged across the Atlantic Coast Line railroad tracks in front of С. C. Hines’ and E. T. Sanders' store at Holly Ridge. Its immediate aim was to smooth a road out of the mud, but it signalled an end forever to lotus eating. On that date construction of tem¬ porary Camp Davis was started, and within six months the Army spent S 1 6,000,000 on the anti-aircraft train¬ ing base. Four months later the Navy docked in Onslow County, too. and began building permanent Camp Lcjcunc with attendant facilities at a total cost to date of above $300 mil¬ lion. Such a place as Onslow naturally had already attracted visitors from more harried centers, but neither the county’s capacity nor hospitality was prepared for what followed. Hundreds of thousands of young men came to the camps for war training, and at one time over 120.000 troops probably were in the county. No county in North Carolina under¬ went such growth and so many changes in a decade, and it is still going on. Aside from the military, the civilian population soared fantastically. Jack¬ sonville, the county seat, lunged from 873 in 1940 to 3,960 in 1950. a gain of 349 per cent, but all sections shared to some extent in the growth, and the county's population jumped from 17,- 000 to 41,000. Already these figures are out of date. Onslow added nearly S.OOO persons from 1950 to 1953. a gain of over 18 per cent. A Flat Country Onslow is large — 756 square miles —and lies in southeastern North Caro¬ lina. The terrain is flat to gently roll¬ ing, sloping from an altitude of 63 feet around Richlands down to sea level. It is one of the few counties with a mainland facing directly on the ocean, hut now the beach is separated from the mainland by the Inland Waterway. Forests cover the extensive swamps and pocosins, which, with coastal marshlands and water, lake up about three-fourths of the area. Many of the large pocosins anil '•bays'' have little or no natural drainage, and this water¬ logged soil is of scant value. Game abounds in these tracts, some of them practically inaccessible. I he New Through the heart of the county twists beautiful New River, the only large stream in North Carolina to have both its headwaters and mouth in the same county. It is a stubby river, about Sir ArtUe Onto., it the (fee (Anting ot Hugh Wohtolr The piltur*. preicntcd to Ottile* br led» Holitoi. it i" the tourtho.tc ot loeltwivitW— IPtoto Ь» ctartur I. Po-tont brov». (Wo. County Hilteeion.) / THE STATE. Млеем 26. tOSS