Goldsboro, North Carolina

Goldsboro, originally Goldsborough, is a city in Wayne County, North Carolina, United States. The city is situated in North Carolina’s Coastal Plain and is bordered on the south by the Neuse River and the west by the Little River. The nearby town of Waynesboro was founded in 1787, and Gold’sboro was incorporated in 1847.

About Goldsboro, North Carolina in brief

Summary Goldsboro, North CarolinaGoldsboro, originally Goldsborough, is a city in Wayne County, North Carolina, United States. The city is situated in North Carolina’s Coastal Plain and is bordered on the south by the Neuse River and the west by the Little River. It is about 40 miles southwest of Greenville, 50 miles southeast of Raleigh, and 75 miles north of Wilmington. Seymour Johnson Air Force Base is located in Goldsboro. The nearby town of Waynesboro was founded in 1787, and Gold’sboro was incorporated in 1847. It was known as the ‘Black Second’ district after the Civil War, when it was known for its majority-black population. During World War II, the North Carolina Congressional delegation was successful in gaining the present Congressional delegation in the present-day House of Representatives. It has a population of 36,437, according to the 2010 Census, and is the principal city of and is included in the Goldsboro, N.C. Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Greenville and Wilmington. The population of Wayne County was 1,500 at the start of the 19th century; it has since grown to more than 2,000. The town was the trading center of a rural area that started with yeoman farmers. It had been developed as large cotton plantations dependent on the labor of enslaved African Americans, as the invention of the cotton gin had enabled profitable cultivation of short-staple cotton in the upcounties.

In 1847, the town was incorporated and became the new Wayne County seat following a vote of the citizens. In the following decades, the growth continued in part by new railroad connections to Charlotte and Beaufort. It played a significant role in the Civil war, both for stationing Confederate troops and for transporting their supplies. In December 1862, both sides fought for possession of the strategically significant Wilmington and Weldon Railroad Bridge. After the battles of Bentonville and Wyse Fork, Union General Sherman’s forces met with the armies of Schofield, their troops taking over the city in March 1863. The last African American elected to Congress in 1894 was Henry White, who served two terms. The Democrat-dominated legislature established legal racial segregation in public facilities in the 1880s. Most states have failed to adequately support community programs to replace community facilities such as the mentally ill, such as Seymour Johnson State Hospital. In 1899, the legislature authorized an addition but did not appropriate sufficient funds until after passage of civil rights legislation requiring integration of public facilities.