The type
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rcsidentiol sections which spmng up in G'lllon during rhe post
Fastest
Growing
Town
North Carolina's fastest growing
town over the past decade is still grow¬
ing. Grifton, mostly in Pitt County, but
with a fragment over in Lenoir,
chalked up
а 26Я
per cent increase,
according to preliminary census fig¬
ures. It would have been more, said
Mayor Wiley Gaskins, if the burgeon¬
ing suburbs had been included.
Ten years ago Grifton was a fading
rural center. Then came the DuPont
plant over in Lenoir, just a skip and
a hop away. Kinston claimed it for its
own. but impact was even greater upon
Grifton. Not only did Grifton people
get good-paying jobs there, but hun¬
dreds of incoming employes, including
executive personnel, found Grifton a
convenient place to live.
New residential sections were
opened, neat and modern homes went
up. To serve this population, new en¬
terprises were started or moved to
town. A bank, building and loan, build¬
ing supply service, a newspaper, new
churches, stores pushed the hamlet's
main street both ways.
The transformation caught up the
original residents, too. Merchants,
faced with both new opportunities and
new competition, built new quarters or
renovated old ones. Out in the resi¬
dential section, a green winter lawn
appeared. Next door, the householder
watched, admired, was converted, and
his yard blossomed forth, too. Like a
green wave, new lawns swept through
the block, splashed over into the next,
and moved through town. The Great
Paint Era arrived, engulfing homes as
well as business structures.
For two years, Grifton won the
( Continued on pose 22)
Modern stores replaced shabby structures; at right, Gritton's mam street looks prosperous
