Guilford County
High
Point is located in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. Most
of the city is located in Guilford County, but also
extends into neighboring Randolph, Davidson, and Forsyth
counties. High Point is North Carolina's only city that expands into
four counties.
Greensboro,
North Carolina is the largest city in Guilford County and the largest
in the Piedmont Triad region.
In
2003, the previous Greensboro - Winston-Salem - High Point metropolitan
statistical area (MSA) was re-defined by the U.S. Office of Management
and Budget resulting in the formation of the Greensboro-High Point MSA
and the Winston-Salem MSA. The 2006 population estimate for the Greensboro-High
Point MSA was 685,378. The Greensboro - Winston-Salem - High Point combined
statistical area (CSA), popularly referred to as the Piedmont Triad,
had an estimated population of 1,513,576 in 2006. Source: US Bureau
of the Census, Released April 2007
History
of Guilford County
The county was formed in 1771 from parts of Rowan County and Orange
County. It was named for Francis North, 1st Earl of Guildford, father
of Frederick North, Lord North, British Prime Minister from 1770 to
1782. The Quaker church played a major role in the European settlement
of the county, and numerous Quakers still live in the county.
On
March 15, 1781, the Battle of Guilford Court House was fought in present-day
Greensboro between Generals Charles Cornwallis and Nathanael Greene
during the American Revolution. This battle marked a key turning point
in the Revolutionary War in the South. Although General Cornwallis,
the British Commander, held the field at the end of the battle, his
losses were so severe that he decided to withdraw to the Carolina and
Virginia coastline, where he could receive reinforcements and his battered
army could be protected by the British Navy. His decision ultimately
led to his defeat later in 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia, by a combined
force of American and French troops and warships.
In
1779 the southern third of Guilford County became Randolph County. In
1785 the northern half of its remaining territory became Rockingham
County.
Due
to the large number of Quakers living in Guilford, many of the county's
residents were opposed to slavery before the Civil War. The county was
a stop on the famous Underground Railroad, which provided escaped slaves
with a route to freedom in the North. Levi Coffin, one of the founders
of the "railroad", was a Guilford County native. He is credited
with personally helping over 2,000 slaves escape to freedom before the
war.
In
1891, the county became home to the state's first and only publicly
supported institution of higher learning for women, the State Normal
and Industrial School. In 1932, the school became the Women's College
of North Carolina when it joined with the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill and NC State University in Raleigh to form the Consolidated
University of North Carolina. From the 1930's to the 1960's the Women's
College was the third-largest women's university in the world. The school's
name was changed a final time in 1963 when it began admitting men; it
is now known as the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
In
1960 Guilford County helped spark a major development in the American
civil rights movement when four black students from the North Carolina
A&T State University in Greensbboro started the first civil rightst
sit-in. Known afterwards as the Greensboro Four, the four men deliberately
sat at a "whites-only" lunch counter at the Woolworth's store
in downtown Greensboro and asked to be served. They were arrested, but
their action led to many other college students in Greensboro - including
white students from Guilford College and the Women's College - to sit
at the lunch counter in a show of support. Within two months the sit-in
movement spread to 54 cities in 9 states; Woolworth's eventually agreed
to desegregate its lunch counters and other restaurants in Southern
towns and cities followed suit. A darker racial incident in 1979 was
called the Greensboro massacre. In this incident the predominantly African
American Communist Workers Party (CWP) led a march protesting the Ku
Klux Klan and other white-supremacist groups through a black neighborhood
in southeastern Greensboro. They were attacked and shot at by the Ku
Klux Klan and members of the American Nazi Party, several of the Communist
Party marchers were killed or wounded in the attack. The case received
further national publicity when the accused shooters were found "not
guilty" by an all-white jury.
Randolph
County
The county was formed in 1779 from Guilford County. It was named for
Peyton Randolph, first president of the Continental Congress and is
home of the North Carlolina Zoo. Randolph County is located in the Piedmont
section of central North Carolina, a region of gently rolling hills
and woodlands. As of 2000, the population was 130,454.
Davidson
County
The county was formed in 1822 from Rowan County. It was named after
Brigadier General William Lee Davidson, an American Revolutionary War
general killed at the Battle of Cowan's Ford on the Catawba River in
1781. As of 2000, the population was 147,246
Forsyth
County
The county was formed in 1849 from Stokes County. It was named for Colonel
Benjamin Forsyth, who was killed in the War of 1812. As of 2000, the
population was 306,067