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Business and Industry

Showing results: 1 to 15 out of 30

Town of Apex Encyclopedia

Originally named “Apex” because it was the highest point on the Chatham Railroad line between Richmond, Virginia and Jacksonville, Florida, the town of Apex still exemplifies its motto: “Peak of Good Living.”   Although a little over 30,000 people reside there, and many industries have moved to the area, Apex remains a quaint place to live.

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James G. Babb (1932- ) Encyclopedia

A native North Carolinian, James G. Babb was born January 1, 1932.  He graduated from Belmont Abbey College in 1959 with a degree in business and later achieved success in the communications industry.

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Barringer Gold Mine Encyclopedia

Historians claim the opening of Barringer Gold Mine was a watershed event.  Formerly one of the most important gold mines in 1800s North Carolina, the Barringer Gold Mine is remembered now mostly for being the first gold mine in the Southern Piedmont to use lode mining (pure mining from mineral deposits). 

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Caleb Bradham (1867-1934) Encyclopedia

Known mainly for inventing “Brad’s Drink,” later called Pepsi-Cola, Caleb Bradham’s business career reached its apogee a couple years before World War I.  The effects of the government’s rationing of sugar during the Great War cost Bradham immensely.  Although Pepsi-Cola declared bankruptcy in 1924, the New Bern resident had created a product that North Carolinians and Americans (and now the world) still enjoys.

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Cameron Village Encyclopedia

The Cameron Village Shopping Center opened in 1949 with three stores and one restaurant.  The open-air shopping mall was not only Raleigh's first shopping center away from downtown but also is considered the first shopping center constructed between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, Georgia.  By 1950, Cameron Village, a “town within a town,” comprised 65 stores, 112 business or professional offices, 566 apartment units, and 100 private homes.

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Carteret County Encyclopedia

Carteret County, North Carolina was formed in 1722 out of Craven County.  It is named in honor of Sir John Carteret, who later became the Earl of Granville and one of the Lords Proprietors of North Carolina.

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Cherokee County Encyclopedia

Since its charter in 1839, Cherokee County has experienced economic and demographic change.  The county's population has grown from 3,000 in 1839 to approximately 25,000.  Today, Cherokee County is a popular destination for tourists, and mountain living is a popular choice for many retirees.

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Credit Unions Encyclopedia

In 1915, the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Credit Union Act.  (The law allowed for the formation and supervision of credit unions within the state.)  By 1916, North Carolinians led the South in the establishment of credit unions. 

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Don Curtis and the Curtis Media Group Encyclopedia

Although Don Curtis founded the Curtis Media Group in 1968, he started his media career ten years earlier.  In 1957, 15 year old Don began working at WKMT in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.  He transformed his weekly broadcast in Bessemer City into one of the largest single shareholder companies in the United States.

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Duplin Winery Encyclopedia

Although Tar Heels were national leaders in wine making before the Civil War and once again during the early 1900s, few modern-day Americans—and even native Tar Heels—have regarded the state as a leader in grape and wine production. North Carolina is known mainly today for championship college basketball and tourist attractions and its tobacco and pork industries.  Over the past two decades, however, wineries have been started across the state.  Yet Duplin Winery in Rose Hill has been the major link between the days of state and local Prohibition and the current revival in North Carolina viticulture and serves as a harbinger for the medicinal uses of the muscadine.

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Fayetteville and Western Plank Road Encyclopedia

“The longest and most noted of the plank roads constructed in North Carolina,” the Fayetteville and Western Plank Road stretched 129 miles from Fayetteville to Bethania, a Moravian village outside of Salem.  But its size contributed to its demise as a major avenue of trade.

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Food Lion Encyclopedia

A regional grocery chain and subsidiary of Belgium-based Delhaize Group, Food Lion began in 1957 as a one-store operation in Salisbury, North Carolina, under the name Food Town and the direction of Ralph W. Ketner.  After the introduction of the LFPINC concept in 1967, the grocery chain grew from seven stores to approximately 800 in 1991, the year in which Ketner retired.  Before then in 1983, the company had changed its name to Food Town.  During the early 1990s, the supermarket chain went through legal battles that curbed its exponential growth.  Under the leadership of DelHaize Group executives, the company in February 2007 employed approximately 73,000 workers in almost 1,200 stores and served nearly ten million customers in eleven states.

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Antebellum Gold Mining (1820-1860) Encyclopedia

“The mining interest of the State is now only second to the farming interest.”  So wrote a reporter of the Western Carolinian of Salisbury in 1825.  But according to historians Richard D. Knapp and Brent D. Glass in Gold Mining in North Carolina (1999) the average Tar Heel did not fall victim to gold fever.  Nevertheless, there was enough demand by 1830 for a Charlotte-based Miners’ and Farmers’ Journal to begin publication.  

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Willis Hinton (1840-1924) Encyclopedia

In spite of his illiteracy, Hinton was a successful entrepreneur.  He ran two flourishing businesses when African Americans struggled for equality and respect and the chance to participate in a free market where each held his own.

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Ralph W. Ketner (1920- ) Encyclopedia

Co-founder of Food Town (later renamed Food Lion), Ralph Ketner started working in the grocery business as a child in his father’s meat store in Salisbury, North Carolina and later as a teenager during the Depression in his brother’s Kannapolis, North Carolina store.  These early experiences, combined with an innovation and lifelong desire to cut costs, helped Ralph Ketner revolutionize the grocery industry and make a one-store operation in Salisbury into a leading, national supermarket chain.

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