Chatham County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of 2000, the population was 49,329. Its county seat is Pittsboro.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 49,329 people, 19,741 households, and 13,858 families residing in the county. The population density was 72 people per square mile (28/km²). There were 21,358 housing units at an average density of 31 per square mile (12/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 74.94% White, 17.07% Black or African American, 0.41% Native American, 0.59% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 5.81% from other races, and 1.13% from two or more races. 9.62% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 19,741 households out of which 28.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.30% were married couples living together, 10.00% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.80% were non-families. 24.50% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 2.91.

In the county the population was spread out with 22.50% under the age of 18, 7.30% from 18 to 24, 30.40% from 25 to 44, 24.60% from 45 to 64, and 15.30% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 96.80 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.80 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $42,851, and the median income for a family was $50,909. Males had a median income of $32,980 versus $26,044 for females. The per capita income for the county was $23,355. About 7.10% of families and 9.70% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.70% of those under age 18 and 12.00% of those age 65 or over.

History

The county was formed in 1771 from Orange County. It was named, like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1758, for William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who served as British Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768 and opposed harsh colonial policies.

In 1907 parts of Chatham County and Moore County were combined to form Lee County. The award winning PBS Documentary Family Name notes Chatham County as the place the relationship between the African-American and European-American branches of the Alston family originated George Moses Horton, Historic Poet Laureate of Chatham County, North Carolina (1797?-1883) lived most of his life in Chatham County and is among the few slaves to have published material while still a slave

Law and government

A five-member Board of Commissioners governs Chatham County. The commissioners are elected at large, but must reside within a particular district. The members of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners are elected for four-year terms, but the terms are staggered so that all five seats are not up for election at the same time.

Current Chatham County Board of Commissioners

• George Lucier, Chair (District 3) Term: 2006 - 2010
• Allen Michael "Mike" Cross, Vice Chair (District 2) Term: 2004-2008
• Patrick Barnes, Commissioner (District 1) Term: 2004-2008
• Carl E. Thompson, Commissioner (District 5) Term: 2006 - 2010
• Tom Vanderbeck, Commissioner (District 4) Term: 2006 - 2010

Commissioners appoint a county manager who administers the day-to-day business of the county, including personnel and budget oversight. The Board of Commissioners also appoints the county attorney, clerk to the board of commissioners who is responsible for meeting agendas and minutes, and the tax administrator who manages all tax office functions, but they do not appoint other county staff positions.

The Board of Commissioners does have general authority over county policies, but several other boards have authority over specific policy areas, such as the Board of Health, Board of Social Services, Board of Elections and Soil and Water Conservation District Board. The Board of Commissioners appoints all members of the Board of Health and makes some of the appointments to the Board of Social Services, but neither the Board of Elections nor the Soil and Water District Conservation Board have any commissioner appointments.

Chatham County is a member of the regional Triangle J Council of Governments.

A Chatham County native, Joe Hackney is currently (2007-2008 session) serving his 14th term in the N.C. House of Representatives. He has served as speaker pro tem, house majority leader and house Democratic leader and was elected speaker of the house in January 2007. He is consistently rated by his peers as one of the ten most effective legislators, according to the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research. He is president-elect of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Education

Chatham County contributes funds to, but does not govern, K-12 public education and the community college system. The Chatham County School System is governed by its own elected board. There are three public high schools: Northwood in Pittsboro, Jordan-Matthews in Siler City, and Chatham Central in Bear Creek. A new high school is scheduled to be built on Jack Bennett Road in northeast Chatham by August 2011.

Central Carolina Community College, which has two campuses in the county, is governed by its own appointed Board of Trustees.

Generally, county resources provide only part of the total funding for K-12 and community colleges, but the county devotes a considerable amount of its resources to public education. In FY 2007-08, more than 39% of the county’s tax dollars went to education.

According to the N.C. Association of County Commissioners Annual Tax and Budget Survey for FY 2006-07, the county ranked 11th in the state in total spending per student and fifth in the percent of the current expense/general funds spent on schools per student. The county also was 14th in overall education resources per capita during FY 06-07.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 709 square miles (1,836 km²), of which, 683 square miles (1,769 km²) of it is land and 26 square miles (68 km²) of it (3.69%) is water.

The county lies totally within the Piedmont physiographic region. The topography of the county is generally gently rolling with several higher hills rising above the general terrain. One of these hills, Terrells Mountain, on the Orange County line is the transmitter site for several radio and tv stations for the Raleigh-Durham market, including WUNC-TV 4, WDCG(G105), WKSL (93.9 Kiss FM), and WUNC 91.5 FM (NC Public Radio).

The county lies within the Cape Fear River drainage basin. The Cape Fear River begins in the county near the community of Moncure, at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River below Jordan Lake. B. Everett Jordan Lake, a major reservoir and flood-control lake, is located within the New Hope River basin and lies mainly in eastern Chatham County. The lake is owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers and is partially leased by the State of North Carolina as Jordan Lake State Recreation Area.

Geology

The county lies in the Piedmont area of central North Carolina. Much of the eastern part of the county lies within the Triassic Basin, a subregion of the Piedmont. Much of the bedrock in the county is volcanic in origin and formed during the Triassic period (hence the name). The Triassic origins have led to the formation of coal deposits in the southern part of the county. The Boren Clay Products Pit just north of Gulf in extreme southern Chatham County is a place where Triassic flora fossils persist The volcanic origins also led to the creation of high amounts of metamorphic based rocks in the county. The county lies on the Carolina Slate Belt. Soils in the county are mostly clay based and have a deep red color, as do most soils in the piedmont. Groundwater in the county is general full of minerals and tends to be hard if not softened. Mineral based water was the attraction at Mt. Vernon Springs during the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. A resort spa was established there based around the mineral springs of which people would drink the water to hopefully cure ailments and diseases. The resort closed in the early 20th century and is now gone. The springs are still there and are maintained by a local church.

Coal Mining

The county is also home to the only known minable bituminous coal deposits in the state. The area along the Deep River, which forms the border of Chatham and Lee County was a major coal producing area between the Revolutionary War and the Great Depression. It was deemed the Deep River Coal Field. The communities of Carbonton and Cumnock(formerly called Egypt in Lee County) began as a result of the coal mining industry. It is said that much of the coal mined in the field during the Civil War was used to fuel Confederate operations. A fatal mining disaster at the Coal Glen mine in the 1920s, along with frequent flooding of Deep River sealed the fate of the mines and the mines were all closed by the 1940s. Recent attempts to tap the coal have proved failures, since geologists say the coal is too highly faulted and the threat of explosive gases underground is too high. The coal is, also, said to have too high of a sulfur content to be burned with current environmental laws. It was once thought that natural gas and oil may be in the area where the coal mines were, but none that is economical enough to be pumped has yet to be found.

Townships

The county is divided into thirteen townships: Albright, Baldwin, Bear Creek, Cape Fear, Center, Gulf, Hadley, Haw River, Hickory Mountain, Matthews, New Hope, Oakland, and Williams.

Agriculture and Industry

The county once was dependent on agriculture for economic survival. Due to the area's relatively poor soil conditions, cash crops such as tobacco were grown only in smaller quantities and were never important in the county's economy. Livestock has always played a larger role in the county's agricultural heritage, especially cattle and poultry. The county was once had a thriving dairy industry, but in recent years most farms have been sold and developed. The county is one of the state leaders in the poultry industry, being home to several large poultry processing facilities. The poultry industry in the county is centered mainly around the western part of the county near Siler City. Townsend Foods and Golden Poultry are the largest poultry companies in the county. Forage crops such as hay are, also, grown in large quantities in the county. Carolina Farm Stewardship Association has been housed in Chatham County along with many organic agriculture farmers.

Industrial growth in the county has largely been focused around the Siler City and Moncure areas of the county. By far most of the industry in the county is set up around Moncure. Companies in that area include, Progress Energy, Weyerhauser, Honeywell, and ATC Panels.

Brick manufacturing has been an important economic factor in the Moncure area with several brick plants operating around the Moncure and Brickhaven communities.

3M also operates a greenstone mine south of Pittsboro along US 15-501. The mine takes greenstone and uses it to manufacture roofing shingle granules. In 2007, residents opposed to industrialization of the county successfully blocked a similar quarry from being built in the western part of the county.

The scenic rural environment has attracted many artists' studios (Chatham Artists Guild), and arts-related tourism is a growing economic influence.

Transportation

Chatham County has managed to retain its rural character in part because it is not served by an Interstate Highway. However, Chatham County plays an important role in regional transportation due to its close proximity to the geographic center of North Carolina and to major cities such as Raleigh, Durham and Greensboro.

Highways

• U.S. 64
• U.S. 421
• U.S. 15-501-N.C. 87

The main east-west artery serving Chatham County is U.S. 64, which provides access to Siler City and Pittsboro. U.S. Routes 421 and 15-501 run in a north-south direction through the county; U.S. 421 serves Siler City and U.S. 15-501 serves Pittsboro. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the NCDOT invested more than one hundred million dollars upgrading U.S. 64, U.S. 421 and U.S. 15-501, which had previously been two-lane roads, to multi-lane highways. There is now a U.S. 64 bypass north of Pittsboro; a similar freeway diverts traffic on U.S. 421 east of Siler City.

Airport

Siler City Municipal Airport (5w8) is located 3 miles southwest of downtown Siler City. This public access airport is home to several single and multiengine airplanes and is a favorite stop for general aviation flyers, owing to its idyllic setting and spacious runway and ramp.

Rail

The county is served by both Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation. Norfolk Southern serves Siler City, Bonlee, Bear Creek, and Goldston as a part of a spur line that runs between Greensboro and Sanford. CSX serves the Moncure area on trackage that runs between Raleigh and Hamlet. Oddly enough Pittsboro was once served by the Seaboard System Railroad (the predecessor to CSX), but the tracks were taken up in the 1970s and were never to return.

Development

Residential development has been a highly contested and controversial issue in the county for the past few years. The county's location in the Research Triangle region has allowed for explosive growth to occur in the county within the past 10 years.

According to the Land Use study released on March 7, 2007 by the Operations Research and Education Laboratory Institute for Transportation Research and Education at NC State there are to be a projected 19,000 new homes built in Chatham County by 2020.

Many large scale residential developments have been built over the past few years in the eastern and northern parts of the county as towns in Orange County, Durham County, and Wake County have been filling up and expanding outward into Chatham County. Many people are lured to Chatham County by its rural setting and by the cheaper tax base compared to other counties in the Triangle, although this is becoming less of an issue as taxes and property values increase.

Many residents feel that as the county grows and becomes developed that it will lose its rural charm and will become suburban. Some residents worry that incidents of crime and infrastructure strains will get worse. There has already been much criticism of local law enforcement agencies in the county for not growing adequately enough with the county, inadvertently leading to variable increases in crime.

On the other hand, some residents believe that growth benefits the county and will bring a much larger tax base to the historically rural county, which could fund increases in law enforcement and government services. Further these residents note that rising demand for land in Chatham leads to higher property value for all existing residents. And finally, they say that growth will bring more retail stores to the area so that the county loses less of their sales tax revenue to neighboring counties.

Immigration

Immigration issues have been another controversial topic in the county over the last few years. Many Hispanic workers have come to the county over the last few years, mainly to work in the county's large poultry industry. The poultry industry, centered around Siler City has done wonders for the county's economy and has been very helpful to Siler City's economy as well. Illegal immigration, though, has divided many residents, with native-born residents pointing out that illegals have destroyed Siler City's small town charm by forcing many elderly residents and businesses to leave town, and driving up crime rates, gang activity, and poverty rates.

Adjacent counties

• Orange County, North Carolina - north
• Durham County, North Carolina - northeast
• Wake County, North Carolina - east
• Harnett County, North Carolina - southeast
• Lee County, North Carolina - south
• Moore County, North Carolina - southwest
• Randolph County, North Carolina - west
• Alamance County, North Carolina - northwest

Cities and towns

• Fearrington
• Goldston
• Pittsboro
• Siler City

Unincorporated communities:

• Bear Creek
• Bennett
• Bonlee
• Brickhaven
• Bynum
• Carbonton
• Corinth
• Gulf
• Haywood
• Moncure
• Silk Hope
• Wilsonville

References

External links

• Chatham County Government
• Chatham County Travel and Tourism
• Chatham Journal Newspaper
• Chatham Conservative Voice
• Chatham Online Bulletin Board
• Chatham Chatlist Highlights
• 99 things we love about Chatham County