Page 154 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

with the North Carolina State Capitol in Union Square at the center.
President Andrew Johnson, was born in Raleigh in 1808.
Before the Revolution, New Bern, a port town 35 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, was the largest city and the capital of North Carolina. That was because ports on the Atlantic Ocean were easily connected to Britain by sea. But in the Revolutionary
War this kind of location was also open to attack by British naval forces, so it became necessary to move the capital farther inland.
Raleigh was chosen as the site of the new capital in 1788, as its central location would protect it from any further attacks from the coast. The city was named for Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsor of Roanoke, the “lost colony” on Roanoke Island.
Curiously, there was another, more human reason for its location. It was within 11 mi (18 km) of Isaac Hunter’s Tavern, the tavern used by the state legislators. Most other states have capitals that did have a least a small settlement where the capital grew. In the case of Raleigh there was no
settlement at all. The plan was a grid growing outwards from a central square and was developed from the plan for Philadelphia.
Andrew Johnson, the nation’s 17th President, was born in Raleigh in 1808.
In 1831, a fire destroyed the State Capitol. As a result it had to be rebuilt. Its granite was delivered by the first railroad in the state. The new Capitol was completed in 1840.
After the Civil War Raleigh was slow to recover. This was not hat it had been badly damaged, but it relied on farming from the surrounding land, and that had been damaged and was slow to grow back even though the cities of the north were booming based on factory jobs.
As with many state capitals, the presence of the state government has resulted in banks and other financial businesses moving here. But it was not until after World war II that Raleigh began to grow. This was largely a result of the opening of the Research Triangle Park in 1959 designed to encourage university research to combine with high-tech firms and the result of this, plus the pleasant climate and scenery have brought many jobs into the area.
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