Experience Dunn, North Carolina
Incorporated February 12, 1887, the city of Dunn has come a long way since its settlement some 127 years ago as a logging town and turpentine distilling center. Today Dunn claims industrious citizenry numbering 10,000 along with a growing economy that is firmly grounded in agriculture, manufacturing, distribution, and tourism.
The city of Dunn, known to its residents as an area of pride and progress, had humble yet memorable beginnings. A picture of Dunn and its birth is vividly painted by Dunn’s own able biographer, Mr. Herman P. Green in the following excerpts:
“In the middle or late 1870’s, what is now the Town of Dunn, was chiefly woodland broken here and there by small cotton fields and very occasionally a farm dwelling on every side, deep swamps formed almost an impenetrable barrier. Even today it is most difficult to travel as much as three to four miles from the center of town in any direction without crossing a river or swamp of some kind. Besides a small amount of farming, the chief occupation was turpentine and logging. Logs and turpentine were transported to a river landing near Averasboro and rafted down the Cape Fear River to Wilmington. The rafts men then walked from Wilmington back home.
Logging camps sprang up. Rugged men occupied them. Barrooms also naturally appeared. Life was cheap, especially on weekends. Guns, knives, bootheels, bungstarters and other favorite weapons of the era were the order of the day. The town, according to records of the United States Postal Service, has only three official names. They are “Wade, “Lucknow”, and “Dunn”. It could very well have been called “Hell’s Half Acre”. “Tear Shirt” has also been mentioned in this manner. One night, a fight broke out at one of the famous barrooms involving some twenty-five or more men. One got his shirt ripped into shreds. When the disturbance quieted down, someone picked up the torn shirt and gave it to the barroom keeper. From then on, this place was known as “Tear Shirt Barroom”…
…The name Dunn was in honor of Mr. Bennett R. Dunn, the civil engineer who laid out the roadbed and personally supervised the construction of the railroad between Wilson and Fayetteville…
…Contact with the outside world centered through Averasboro. It was here the old stage coach or post road from Raleigh to Fayetteville converged with the road from Smithfield. Here also contacts were made by ferry with settlements “over the river”. Also, somewhat limited contacts were made by pole boat navigation down the Cape Fear River by way of Fayetteville to Wilmington.
In 1885, a “short cut” railroad from Wilson to Fayetteville was begun and was completed on October 1, 1886. It was extended from Fayetteville to Rowland (43 miles) and was completed on March 28, 1892. Mr. Henry Pope deeded to the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, Inc. a strip of land all the way across Harnett county 130 feet wide, 65 feet each side of the center of the track or roadbed. Since no limitations by metes and bounds were placed on the railroad by the deed, Mr. Pope, in effect told the railroad to select the right of way wherever they desired and after the rails were laid the metes and bounds would be already established.
The Dunn Depot was placed at the 50 miles post from Wilson. Question arises as to why the spot was selected. The railroad had a policy, at that time, of establishing depots approximately seven miles apart along new track. As evidence that this policy was carried out between Smithfield and Fayetteville, check the railroad mileage (not highway mileage) between Smithfield, Four Oaks, Benson, Dunn, Godwin, Wade, Beard’s Station and Fayetteville…
…Soon after the town was chartered, the commissioners ordered that the town be fenced in. There were not any stock laws at the time. The stock was branded for identification purposes and allowed to run freely. The purpose of the fence was to keep the wandering stock out of town. However, it was said by some that the fence served a double purpose. Practically every farmer has at least one cow and pen of hogs. The second purpose of the fence was to keep the livestock of the town inhabitants inside the town. There were constant complaints of the unsanitary condition of a neighbor’s hog pen…
…The first and only street in Dunn at that time was Broad Street. It was little more than a winding hog path among shrubs and pine stumps. Of course there was only one railroad crossing. Urgent requests were made in September 1887 to the Town Commissioners and others to open Cumberland Street for at least two blocks each side of the railroad to provide additional crossing – in due time this was done. The town was expanding…”
The Town of Dunn was incorporated February 12, 1887. The first mayor was Julius J. Wade, and he was also the first appointed postmaster. The town was growing and by 1980, Dunn had amassed a population of almost 9,000 residents, and six years later the city unveiled perhaps its most revered treasure.
On June 6, 1986, the home of Dunn’s favorite son, Major General William Carey Lee (March 12, 1895 – June 25, 1948), was dedicated and opened to the public. Certainly, no summary of Dunn’s history would be complete without the story of this remarkable man.
William Carey Lee was born in Dunn on March 12, 1895. He attended Wake Forest and North Carolina State Universities, but left the latter to enroll as a second lieutenant in the U. S. Army. After serving 18 months in Europe and earning the rank of captain, Lee returned stateside, graduated from N.C. State and from the U.S. Army Officer’s School two years later.
Upon returning from World War I, his enthusiasm for the parachute and glider troops he had seen in Germany led to the development of the Parachute Test Platoon. In March 1942, the Provisional Parachute Group, only a year old and led by Lieutenant Colonel Lee was reconstituted as the Airborne Command. Within the year, three parachute regiments were added to the army’s airborne forces and the Airborne Command Headquarters relocated to Camp Fort Bragg, NC, the now Brigadier General Lee in command.
In August of 1942, the Army’s first airborne divisions were formed, the 82nd and the 101st. Major General Lee was put in command of the new 101st Airborne Division. After a year of training, General Lee and his paratroopers departed to England where they were, in General Lee’s words, to have a “rendezvous with destiny.”
In 1944, General Lee was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In February of that same year, he suffered a heart attack and retired from the Army shortly afterward. Sadly, he never realized the chance to jump into battle with his men.
Frederick Lincoln “Link” Wray, Jr. (May 2 1929 – November 5, 2005) American rock and roll guitarist, songwriter and vocalist was born in Dunn, NC and first came to popularity in the late 1950s. Building on the over driven, distorted electric guitar sound of early electric blues records, his 1958 instrumental hit “Rumble” by Link Wray and his Ray Men invented the power-chord, the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists, making possible punk and heavy rock. He was the first to use intentional distortion in a rock and roll recording. Rolling Stone Magazine placed Wray at number 45 of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. In 2013 he was announced as a nominee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Link Wray was the first Native American rock star with “Rumble” selling over a million copies in 1958. Link Wray has been inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame, North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, Rockabilly Hall of Fame, Washington (DC) Area Music Association, Southern Legends Hall of Fame and many more. He has been featured in the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the Native American Indian “Up Where We Belong” exhibits in both Washington, D.C. and New York City.
Link Wray Day has been declared by Governor’s Proclamation in the states of Maryland and North Carolina. He is honored by his hometown of Dunn with the annual “Link Wray Music Festival,” an event held in May of each year of the weekend of his birth. Dunn is proud to be the hometown of such an honored and accomplished musician.
The Dunn City Council serves as the policy-making governing body of the City. The Dunn City Council has seven members, all of whom are elected to four-year terms. Voters throughout the city choose the mayor. Each of the other six council members is a representative and is chosen only by voters within the district. District representatives live in the districts they represent. Dunn is divided into six districts.
Dunn’s current Mayor is William Elmore, Jr., President of Elmore Furniture and Elmore Realty and Builders.
All-America City Status
Dunn has been awarded the All-America City Award twice, first in 1989 and then again in 2013. The All-America City awards recognize local action through community-based problem solving and civic engagement efforts involving the public, private and nonprofit sectors. The designation gives a community “bragging rights” that can help them recruit new business and industry, increase employment and obtain grants for community betterment projects.