1792: THE STATE CAPITAL

With the fate of the young state decided, it soon became evident that the legislature required a permanent resting place for conducting government affairs. Prior to this realization, North Carolina had employed three capitals—Bath, Edenton and New Bern—and a random collection of legislative hideouts, which also included Hillsborough, Tarboro, Fayetteville and Smithville. Owing to population centers, wartime hazards and trade routes, these places had become convenient towns for politicking.

As state capital choices were being debated (it took four years to finalize a hotly contested decision), the population of North Carolina had grown to about 350,000, and western expansion had slowly moved population centers with it. For many politicians, Fayetteville was the obvious choice. Named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, a French military hero who aided the Revolutionary cause, the town had successfully hosted the state convention that ratified the US Constitution, and it boasted an urban center bursting with merchants, food establishments and navigable roads.

For reasons slightly vague (some historians say legislators wanted to build the state capital near the state university), the Assembly eventually cast a very divided vote to develop a barren tract of wilderness sixty-five miles north of Fayetteville—property that boasted a large assembly of trees and a tavern. Purchasing a one-thousand-acre plot, the legislature—in a moment of British nostalgia—elected to call the new, nonexistent town, Raleigh (if you recall the Lost Colony, then you’ll conveniently know why it chose the name).

Today, Raleigh is one of the few American cities that was designed and built specifically to serve as a state capital. Founded in 1792, it would be meticulously laid out in a grid pattern, with the Capitol Building located in its center. Currently, Raleigh is the second-largest city in North Carolina, with about half the population of Charlotte.