Mebane

History

The town was incorporated as Mebanesville in 1881. Its name was changed to Mebane two years later. It is named after Brigadier General Alexander Mebane, an officer during the American Revolution who later served as a U.S. Congressman. In 1939 as part of the New Deal, Margaret C. Gates won a competition sponsored by the Section of Painting and Sculpture of the Treasury Department to create a post office mural in Mebane. Her painting, Landscape—Tobacco Curing, which showed a man and a young boy walking in tandem on their way to work on a tobacco farm, was completed and installed in 1941. In 1965, when the post office was remodeled, the mural was damaged beyond repair, as officials tried to remove it for restoration. A local artist, Henry E. Rood III, was hired to create an exact replica of the painting to adorn the new facility. While the North Carolina Department of Transportation had long-standing plans to reroute North Carolina Highway 119, currently running through the city's downtown, to a new alignment further west, concerns in predominantly African-American communities along the proposed route, combined with longstanding dissatisfaction with access to municipal services, resulted in civil rights complaints being filed by the West End Revitalization Association and other local residents against the Department of Transportation and city government. Although a four-year moratorium on the project was established in 1999, the Federal Highway Administration eventually granted approval in December 2009. In October 2014, the city council voted to adopt a new seal and slogan, replacing "A progressive community, the perfect place to call home" with "Positively Charming".

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which are land and , or 1.36%, is water.

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  20,425
• Carolina Wren

  Thryothorus ludovicianus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  18,786
• Tufted Titmouse

  Baeolophus bicolor (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  16,888
• Carolina Chickadee

  Poecile carolinensis (Audubon, 1834) · Aves
  16,620
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  16,139
• Eastern Bluebird

  Sialia sialis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  14,433
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  13,573
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  12,931

Most recent

• M 2.5 — 2019-03-26
  8 km E of Archdale, North Carolina
• M 2.58 — 2015-11-15
  10 km S of Denton, North Carolina
• M 2.5 — 2006-11-03
  6 km S of Winston-Salem, North Carolina
• M 2.6 — 2006-10-17
  7 km S of Winston-Salem, North Carolina