Page:Eastern North Carolina Encyclopedia.djvu/16



Edgecombe County, while principally and potentially an agricultural county, has made great progress along industrial lines, and its manufacturing industries form a considerable part of its gross wealth.

Being one of the largest producers of both cotton and tobacco, local capital has naturally been attracted to the erection and operation of tobacco sales and storage warehouses, located in the principal towns of the county, and every town in the county has its local cotton market, with facilities for storing large quantities of cotton in standard warehouses. There are also organizations for the handling and storage of peanuts and sweet potatoes.

Edgecombe is the home and headquarters for the East Carolina Railway and the Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Company; has cotton, yarn and hosiery mills, fertilizer factories, cotton seed oil mills, lumber manufacturing plants, veneer plants, all of which add greatly to the material wealth of the county, and furnish steady work and income for its citizens.

The banks, building and loan associations, and wholesale and retail mercantile establishments are organized and operated, not only on a profitable business basis, but also with the view of supplying every need to the citizens of the county from home institutions.

Not only are the local markets easily accessible, but being on the main line of the railroad, foreign markets can be reached without delay.

Edgecombe County welcomes home builders and home workers within her borders. She does not invite speculators or promoters.

When North America was first settled, Edgecombe County was chosen by a fine class of citizenship for their homes, and to-day a large number of the population are descendants of those first settlers and home builders. Edgecombe County is sufficiently inland, and has sufficient altitude to make agriculture home building and community life very inviting.

Edgecombe is strictly a Coastal Plain county, although its boundaries extend to the foot of the Hill Country. Our fields are level, we have no rocks or heavy clay soils, and the streams that rise in the hills flow through the county, following the general incline of the surface, northwest to southeast, and have worn themselves deep streams beds, thus giving an excellent natural drainage, and reducing overflow lands to a minimum. The rainfall is perhaps as nearly ideal as in any land upon which Ten