Cary NC Real Estate
Cary, North Carolina first began as a settlement called “Bradford’s
Ordinary” back in 1750 when the United States was just in its infancy
stage. This cloistered enclave was tucked away for 100 years before the North
Carolina Railroad brought independent settlers and business entrepreneurs to
the sleepy town, putting Cary
NC real estate up for grabs.
Hard-working farmer and lumberjack Allison Francis Page and his wife Catherine
Raboteau Page bought their first piece of Cary NC real estate in 1854 –
300 acres surrounding the railroad – and officially named it “Cary”
after Samuel Fenton Cary, an admirable Ohio prohibitionist. This industrious
developer erected the first streets, saw mill, general store, post office and
hotel (the Page-Walker Hotel). He worked as a railroad agent, postmaster and
first mayor. The area was declared a town in 1871 and when another railroad
line connected Cary NC with the west coast, there was no stopping the region’s
tremendous growth!
In the 1879, Cary Academy opened as a wooden, two-story private boarding school
– that later became North Carolina’s
first public highschool opened in 1896 (now the site of Cary Elementary School
downtown.) In the early 1900s, Cary schools were innovators as the first place
offering students diplomas in vocational agricultural, academia, teacher training
and home economics. Since then Cary has become synonymous with excellent education
in its more than 28 public and private schools.
In 1937, the North Carolina Gourd Society held their first meeting in the town.
Interestingly enough, Cary was known as the “Gourd Capital of the World”!
In the 1970s, the town adopted Planned Unit Development zoning, meaning that
entire communities (churches, schools, commercial, industrial, housing areas)
were planned before construction. The first PUD was Kildaire Farms (also known
as “Farmington Woods”) and was designed after a region in Farmington,
Massachusetts. Government officials valued aesthetically-pleasing surroundings
as they facilitated the large influx of population associated with the emerging
(and expanding) Research Triangle Park which encompassed Raleigh, Durham and
Chapel Hill, situating Cary right in the center.
Many prominent businesses found a happy home in Cary during this time: SAS software
company, IBM, MCI, Siemens, American Airlines, Lucent Technologies, Oxford University
Press, the Lord Corporation, and Austin Foods, to name a few. The Cary
NC real estate market saw unprecedented growth, as eager skilled workers
awaited housing in this prosperous region.
Every decade since the 1970s, Cary North Carolina population has doubled. It’s
incredulous to think that in 1940, the population of Cary was just 1,141 and
as of 2006, that number has grown to an astounding 115,854!
Expansionist in nature, Cary attempted to annex sub-division property South
of its border in 2003, but was met with protests. Despite the minor setback,
Cary NC real estate is still very much coveted property! The town of Cary garnered
widespread popularity as the 8th safest city in the nation and #1 safest city
in the South, the #5 place to live (CNN’s Money Magazine) and the #1 city
for jobs (Forbes Magazine). After the 2000 census, its 50,000 – 100,000
residents constituted “Baby Boomburb” status for the ever-growing
Cary.
Michael McLaughlin
(919) 741-1441
Click to Email
Ronnie Bredahl, Austin Realtor
Austin Real Estate Broker
4802 Woodside Drive
Austin, Texas 78735
info@austinreferralrealty.com
Telephone: (512) 785-9050
