Hamlet

History

The area in Richmond County which presently includes Hamlet was originally known as Sandhills. The Wilmington, Charlotte & Rutherford Railroad was extended through the area in 1866. The first house was constructed there in 1869. In 1872 the land was purchased by John Shortridge, an English immigrant who intended on building a textile mill along a creek. He renamed the locale Hamlet the following year, supposedly in homage to hamlets in the British Isles. He planted a sycamore tree to celebrate the occasion, which stood until 1946. A post office was established in 1876, and that year Shortridge sold a parcel of land to Raleigh and Augusta Air Line Railroad, which completed its own line through Hamlet by the following year. Railway shops were built in 1894 and the town was formally incorporated on February 9, 1897. Seaboard Air Line Railroad decided to establish its regional headquarters there, and Hamlet rapidly grew thereafter. By 1910, the locale hosted two five and dimes, five dry goods stores, and a Coca-Cola bottling plant. From a population of 639 in 1900, the town grew to encompass more than 4,000 residents in 1930. The Hamlet Hospital—the first such facility in the county—was opened in 1915, and by 1940 it had expanded to a new facility and was the largest in the region. Hamlet's early growth was sustained by Seaboard, which heavily invested in facilities within the town. By the end of World War I, 30 trains passed through Hamlet daily, and the corporation decided to construct a maintenance shop, a roundhouse, and a shipping yard. After World War II, an $11 million classification yard, the first one in the Southeastern United States, was established about one mile north of town, opening in 1954. The Seaboard Line carried mostly freight traffic, but also…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (1.75%) is water. The Works Progress Administration built an earthen dam in the city in the 1930s, leading to the creation of a 50-acre shallow body of water, the Hamlet City Lake.

Race & ethnicity