Exploring Our
BY KELLY MCCALL BRANSON
Street view of renovated businesses in historic downtown Garner.
Photo by Wileydoc/shutterstock.com
GARNER WITH A POPULATION OF OVER 31,000 GARNER IS BOOMING BUT STILL OFFERS MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK, ROOM TO SPREAD OUT AND SMALL-TOWN CHARM IN ADDITION TO NEW COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS.
As we continue exploring the many cities, towns and villages that make up the greater Triangle, this issue, we’ll head south from downtown Raleigh and take a look at two towns with a long history in the area — two towns now enjoying a boom in popularity as the Triangle continues to spread its wings. Nudging up to downtown Raleigh, Garner, and just a little further to the south and east, Clayton. Two once quiet little rural towns, have become hot spots for new neighborhoods. And as more and more folks come to live in these southern Triangle towns, more and more businesses and services are following, with great dining and shopping options, recreational and cultural opportunities and health and wellness facilities coming online all the time.
GARNER’S STATION Before English settlers arrived, the area now known as Garner was inhabited by Tuscarora and Sioux Indians. As early as the 1750s, there were documented English residents and a church in the area. But the town, like many North Carolina towns, got its start as a railroad stop. In 1847, North Carolina state leaders designated Garner as the location of a new station of the North Carolina Railroad that ran between Goldsboro and Charlotte. Prior to that, this area in the St. Mary’s Township of North Carolina was primarily agricultural, growing mainly tobacco and cotton. Evidence of Civil War skirmishes in the Garner area can still be seen in the carefully preserved bullet holes in Bethel Church (now New Bethel Baptist Church) and the “Samuel Dupree” house,
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