My realtor buddies & I have been setting out on neighborhood tours so that we can learn more about our area. I’ve always been interested in how towns & areas develop as they do. I hope you will find my adventures interesting, too!
Let’s talk today about Cary, NC. Located almost entirely in Wake County (with some outer areas in Chatham County) Cary was the 5th fastest growing municipality in the US between 2006-2007 according to the US Census Bureau. Cary is located in the Piedmont and Triangle areas of North Carolina. I’ll have more on those areas in future blogs.
Cary began around 1750 as a settlement called Bradford’s Ordinary. This was the name of the first business in Cary – an inn & tavern run by the colorful John Bradford. Back in those days, a tavern was called an ordinary. As with so much of our country, about 100 years later the railroad arrived and Bradford’s Ordinary became an important link in the line between New Bern and Hillsborough. In 1771, this area became part of the new Wake County, named for Royal Governor William Tryon’s wife, Margaret Wake Tryon.
Allison Francis “Frank” Page is credited with founding the town. Page was a Wake County farmer & lumberman. He and his wife, Catherine “Kate” Raboteau Page bought 300 acres surrounding the railroad junction in 1854 and named it Cary after Samuel Fenton Cary, a former Ohio congressman and prohibitionist that he admired. Mr. Page disapproved of cursing, dancing, card-playing and most of all, drinking. Interesting -- the town was first named after a tavern and then switched to honor a prohibitionist. All that clean living gave him plenty of time to get busy! He became a railroad agent and town developer. He laid out the first streets in Cary and built a sawmill, general store, and post office (of which he became the first Postmaster). In 1868, Page built a hotel to serve railroad passengers coming through Cary. This hotel is now known at the Page-Walker Arts & History Center. It was built in the Second Empire style & JR Walker later bought it, which is how it received its current name. The railroad continued to grow and expand and so did Cary.
Did you know that Cary was the site of the first PUD in North Carolina? What is a PUD, you ask? It is a Planned Unit Development that lays out an entire community including shopping, schools, residences, etc. before construction begins. In 1971, a 967-acre area was developed on the Pine State Dairy Farm and called Kildaire Farms. One section of Kildaire Farms was named Farmington Woods in honor of the farm’s history. We toured Kildaire Farms & I’ll have more information on the history & background of that neighborhood in a future blog.
Recent history shows Cary to be consistently rated as one of the best places to live in the US. Great schools & higher education, proximity to wonderful cultural events, low property taxes, lots of recreation and so much more make this a great place to live.
Would you like more information? Thinking of moving to Cary? Let me know how I can help – I’m your Real Estate Resource.
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