INDUSTRIAL AND AGRICULTURAL
DEVELOPMENT OF
ROBESON COUNTY
raberton is proud of its fine new armory building, and rightfully so.
is impressive in its appearance and well equipped throughout.
II»/ JASPER C. HUTTO
ROBESON COUNTY — known
ns one of the greatest agricul¬
tural producing counties in the
nation - is the largest county in
North Carolina and line seventeen in¬
corporated towns in its limits. It is
the third largest tobacco producing
county in the United States, and ranks
near the top in cotton growing. Hogs,
corn, beans, potatoes and hay arc other
lending farm products.
With an annual crop valuation of
approximately $25, 000.000, Robeson
County is recognized throughout the
nation for the fertility of its soil and
for its progressive farm methods. The
last available listing placed it as
numl>er seventeen in rank in cash
money crop returns in the entire
nation.
Predominately an agricultural lead¬
er, Rolieson County also has its place
in the fields of industry and commer¬
cial enterprise. Textile products, luin-
ber and wood-working lead in the man¬
ufacturing, with tobacco marketing,
tobacco processing plants and cotton
and hog marketing heading up the
commercial side of life in this eco¬
nomically ivell-balanccd county.
Traditionally placed as a repre¬
sentative unit of the “Deep South."
which to many means n section that
moves along languidly, with little ac¬
tivity and unchanging economic
effort, Robeson County called atten¬
tion to itself in the census reports of
11*10 by recording a high percentage
of |>opulation gain. And. to prove
this was not by accident, it showed
in a recent published estimate for
1943 that it was among the first ten
or dozen counties of the state in con¬
tinued growth. This estimate gave the
county well beyond 80,000 inhabi¬
tants, or an increase of more than 60
per cent in population over the census
figures of 1910.
Three races make up this active
and thrifty population — whites, Ne¬
groes and Indians, ranking in num¬
bers in the order named, with approxi¬
mately 15,000 of the total known as
Cherokee Indians of Robeson County,
to give this county tin- largest number
of Indians of any county in any state
in the Union east of the Mississippi
River. Incidentally, to meet the race
situation, Robeson County has three
complete public school systems, while
the churches, theatres, motion picture
houses, hotels and public eating places
are operated so as to conform to the
same general system.
Most of the Negroes devote them-
m'Ivcs to farming and to the tobacco
and lumber industries, while the In¬
dians work almost exclusively in agri¬
cultural pursuits ami are recognized
as excellent farmers, particularly in
the raising of tobacco.
Robeson County takes in 990 square
miles of land, with the famed Lumber
River (known to the Indians as Lum-
bce, and to the first settlers as Drown¬
ing Creek) running through the
county in southeasterly course, to
mark a part of the boundary line on
the south between Robeson and Co¬
lumbus counties before flowing into
South Carolina. This picturesque
stream, with the overhanging cypress
trees and the dangling Spanish moss,
passes directly through the town of
Lumberton and within one block of
the Rolieson County courthouse.
Two years before George Washing¬
ton liecamc the first president of the
United States the North Carolina
General Assembly created Robeson
County from lands taken from Bladen
County on the east and Anson County
to the west. Its name was taken from
Colonel Thomas Robeson, distin¬
guished citizen and leader of the Pa¬
triot forces in Bladen County in the
War of the Revolution. Lumberton
was made the county seat, the town
being laid out the
чаше
year under the
supervision of General John Willis,
with the block on which the present
courthouse stands being set aside as
16
