Greensboro, North Carolina
Greensboro is a city in the U. S. state of North Carolina. It is the 3rd-most populous city in North Carolina, the 68th-most populous city in the United States, the county seat and largest city in Guilford County and the surrounding Piedmont Triad metropolitan region; as of the 2010 census, the city population was 269,666, in 2015 the estimated population was 285,342. Three major interstate highways in the Piedmont region of central North Carolina were built to intersect at this city. In 1808, "Greensborough" was planned around a central courthouse square to succeed Guilford Court House as the county seat; the county courts were thus placed closer to the geographical center of the county, a location more reached at the time by the majority of the county's citizens, who depended on horse and foot for travel. In 2003, the previous Greensboro – Winston-Salem – High Point metropolitan statistical area was re-defined by the U. S. Office of Management and Budget; this region was separated into the Greensboro–High Point MSA and the Winston-Salem MSA.
The 2010 population for the Greensboro–High Point MSA was 723,801. The combined statistical area of Greensboro–Winston-Salem–High Point, popularly referred to as the Piedmont Triad, had a population of 1,599,477. Among Greensboro's many notable attractions, some of the most popular include the Wet'n Wild Emerald Pointe water park, the Greensboro Science Center, the International Civil Rights Museum, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Greensboro Symphony, the Greensboro Ballet, Triad Stage, the Wyndham Golf Championship, the headquarters of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Greensboro Coliseum Complex which hosts various sporting events and other events, the Greensboro Grasshoppers of the South Atlantic Baseball League, the Carolina Dynamo of the Premier Development Soccer League, the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League, the Greensboro Roller Derby, the National Folk Festival. At the time of European encounter, the inhabitants of the area that became Greensboro were a Siouan-speaking people called the Saura.
Other indigenous cultures had occupied this area for thousands of years settling along the waterways, as did the early settlers. Quaker migrants from Pennsylvania, by way of Maryland, arrived at Capefair in about 1750; the new settlers began organized religious services affiliated with the Cane Creek Friends Meeting in Snow Camp in 1751. Three years 40 Quaker families were granted approval to establish New Garden Monthly Meeting; the settlement grew during the next three years, adding members from as far away as Nantucket in Massachusetts. It soon became the most important Quaker community in North Carolina and mother of several other Quaker meetings that were established in the state and west of the Appalachians. After the Revolutionary War, the city of Greensboro was named for Major General Nathanael Greene, commander of the rebel American forces at the Battle of Guilford Court House on March 15, 1781. Although the Americans lost the battle, Greene's forces inflicted heavy casualties on the British Army of General Cornwallis.
Following this battle, Cornwallis withdrew his troops to a British coastal base in Wilmington, North Carolina. Greensboro was established near the geographic center of Guilford County, on land, "an unbroken forest with thick undergrowth of huckleberry bushes, that bore a finely flavored fruit." Property for the future village was purchased from the Saura for $98. Three north-south streets were laid out intersecting with three east-west streets; the courthouse was built at the center of the intersection of Market streets. By 1821, the town was home to 369 residents. In the early 1840s, Greensboro was designated by the state government as one of the stops on a new railroad line, at the request of Governor John Motley Morehead, whose plantation, was in Greensboro. Stimulated by rail traffic and improved access to markets, the city grew soon becoming known as the "Gate City" due to its role as a transportation hub for the Piedmont; the railroads transported goods to and from the cotton textile mills.
Many of the manufacturers developed workers' housing in mill villages near their facilities. Textile companies and related businesses continued into the 21st century, when most went bankrupt, and/or merged with other companies as textile manufacturing jobs moved offshore. Greensboro is still a major center of the textile industry, with the main offices of International Textile Group, Galey & Lord, VF Corporation. ITG Brands, maker of Kool and Salem brand cigarettes, is the third largest tobacco company in the United States and is headquartered in Greensboro. Rail traffic continues to be important for the city's economy, as Greensboro is a major regional freight hub. In addition, four Amtrak passenger trains stop in Greensboro daily on the main Norfolk Southern line between Washington and New Orleans by way of Atlanta. Though the city developed early wealth generated in the 18th and 19th centuries from cotton trade and merchandising resulted in owners' constructing several notable buildings; the earliest named Blandwood Mansion and Gardens, was built by a planter in 1795.
Additions to this residence in 1846, designed by Alexander Jackson Davis of New York City, made the house influential as America's earliest Tuscan-style villa. It has been designated as a
Yadkin County, North Carolina
Yadkin County is located in the U. S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 38,406, its county seat is Yadkinville. Yadkin County is included in the Winston-Salem, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, included in the Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, NC Combined Statistical Area; the county was formed in 1850 from the part of Surry County south of the Yadkin River, for which it was named. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 338 square miles, of which 335 square miles is land and 2.7 square miles is water. Yadkin County is located in the Piedmont region of central North Carolina; the Piedmont consists of rolling farmlands broken by hills or valleys formed by streams. The extreme western section of the county contains the Brushy Mountains, a eroded spur of the much higher Blue Ridge Mountains to the west. Yadkin County marks the eastern end of the Brushy Mountains range; the highest point in the county is Star Peak near Jonesville, at 1,590 feet above sea level.
The Yadkin River forms the county's eastern borders. The county takes its name from the river. Surry County – north Forsyth County – east Davie County – south-southeast Iredell County – south-southwest Wilkes County – west As of the census of 2000, there were 36,348 people, 14,505 households, 10,588 families residing in the county; the population density was 108 people per square mile. There were 15,821 housing units at an average density of 47 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 92.54% White, 3.43% Black or African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.17% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 2.91% from other races, 0.77% from two or more races. 6.48% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 14,505 households out of which 32.10% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.00% were married couples living together, 9.00% had a female householder with no husband present, 27.00% were non-families. 24.00% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.50% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older.
The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 2.92. In the county, the population was spread out with 24.00% under the age of 18, 7.50% from 18 to 24, 30.20% from 25 to 44, 24.20% from 45 to 64, 14.20% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 96.40 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.60 males. The median income for a household in the county was $36,660, the median income for a family was $43,758. Males had a median income of $29,589 versus $22,599 for females; the per capita income for the county was $18,576. About 7.10% of families and 10.00% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.90% of those under age 18 and 17.40% of those age 65 or over. Boonville East Bend Jonesville Yadkinville These towns were incorporated at one time: Arlington, merged with Jonesville in 2001. Hamptonville, chartered in 1818. Huntsville, incorporated in 1792. Shore, incorporated from 1903–1911. Smithtown, incorporated in 1924.
Little Yadkin, annexed by Forsyth County in 1911 and 1927 to become part of Lewisville Township Owing to its Quaker past and consequent historical Unionist sympathies, Yadkin County became and has always remained solidly Republican. The county has voted for the Republican Presidential nominee in every election since that party first contested North Carolina in the 1868 election, being alongside Stokes County and Surry County one of only three North Carolina counties to remain loyal to William Howard Taft in 1912, one of seven to vote for Alf Landon in 1936. Before the Republican Party contested the South, Yadkin County never voted Democratic: it voted for Constitutional Union candidate John Bell in 1860, for Know-Nothing candidate Millard Fillmore in 1856, for the Whig Party in its first election of 1852. Yadkin County is a member of the regional Northwest Piedmont Council of Governments, it is governed by a five-member board of commissioners. In the North Carolina Senate, Yadkin County is located in the 31st Senate District represented by Republican Joyce Krawiec.
In the North Carolina House of Representatives, Yadkin County is in the 73rd District represented by Republican Lee Zachary. Yadkin County has three high schools, Forbush and the Yadkin Early College; the Yadkin Early College is a five-year program where High School and College courses are offered on the Yadkin campus of Surry Community College. Students get the opportunity to earn their High School diploma and an associate degree in Nursing, Criminal Justice, or a transfer degree to a four-year university; the High Schools are fed by eight elementary schools. The eight elementary schools are Boonville, East Bend, Fall Creek, Jonesville, West Yadkin and Yadkinville; the school system operates Yadkin Success Academy, an alternative learning center on Old U. S. 421 in Yadkinville. Yadkin County opened two new Middle Schools in 2009. Starmount Middle School opened in August and serves seventh and eighth grade students from Jonesville and West Yadkin Elementary Schools. Forbush Middle opened in November and serves East Bend, Forbush Elementary, Fall Creek and Yadkinville Schools.
Both campuses are adjacent to the High Schools. Surry Community College offers courses through its Yadkin Campus at 4649 U. S. Highway 601 North near Yadkinville. I-77 US 21 US 421 US 601 NC 67Two major four-lane highways serve
Blue Ridge Parkway
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway, America's longest linear park, runs for 469 miles through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it runs along the spine of the Blue Ridge, a major mountain chain, part of the Appalachian Mountains. Its southern terminus is at U. S. 441 on the boundary between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina, from which it travels north to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. The roadway continues through Shenandoah as Skyline Drive, a similar scenic road, managed by a different National Park Service unit. Both Skyline Drive and the Virginia portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway are part of Virginia State Route 48, though this designation is not signed; the parkway has been the most visited unit of the National Park System every year since 1946 except three.
Land on either side of the road is owned and maintained by the National Park Service, in many places parkway land is bordered by United States Forest Service property. The parkway was on North Carolina's version of the America the Beautiful quarter in 2015. Begun during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the project was called the Appalachian Scenic Highway. Most construction was carried out by private contractors under federal contracts under an authorization by Harold L. Ickes in his role as federal public works administrator. Work began on September 1935, near Cumberland Knob in North Carolina. On June 30, 1936, Congress formally authorized the project as the Blue Ridge Parkway and placed it under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service; some work was carried out by various New Deal public works agencies. The Works Progress Administration did some roadway construction. Crews from the Emergency Relief Administration carried out landscape work and development of parkway recreation areas.
Personnel from four Civilian Conservation Corps camps worked on roadside cleanup, roadside plantings, grading slopes, improving adjacent fields and forest lands. During World War II, the CCC crews were replaced by conscientious objectors in the Civilian Public Service program; the parkway's construction created jobs in the region, but displaced many residents and created new rules and regulations for landowners, including requirements related to how farmers could transport crops. Residents could no longer build on their lands without permission, or develop land except for agricultural use, they were not permitted to use the parkway for any commercial travel but were required to transport equipment and materials on side roads. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians were affected by the parkway, built through their lands. From 1935 to 1940, they resisted giving up the right-of-way through the Qualla Boundary, they were successful in gaining more favorable terms from the U. S. government. The revised bill "specified the parkway route, assured the $40,000 payment for the tribe's land, required the state to build regular highway through the Soco Valley".
Cherokee leaders participated in the dedications. Construction of the parkway was complete by the end of 1966 with one notable exception; the 7.7-mile stretch including the Linn Cove Viaduct around Grandfather Mountain did not open until 1987. The project took over 52 years to complete. Flowering shrubs and wildflowers dominate the parkway in the spring, including rhododendrons and dogwoods, moving from valleys to mountains as the cold weather retreats. Smaller annuals and perennials such as the daisy and aster flower through the summer. Brilliant autumn foliage occurs in September on the mountaintops, descending to the valleys by in October. In early-to-middle October and middle to late April, all three seasons can be seen by looking down from the cold and windy parkway to the green and warm valleys below. October is dramatic, as the colored leaves stand out boldly and occur at the same time, unlike the flowers. Major trees include oak and tulip tree at lower elevations and buckeye and ash in the middle, turning into conifers such as fir and spruce at the highest elevations on the parkway.
Trees near ridges and passes are distorted and contorted by the wind, persistent rime ice is deposited by passing clouds in the winter. The Blue Ridge Parkway tunnels were constructed through the rock—one in Virginia and 25 in North Carolina. Sections of the parkway near the tunnels are closed in winter; because groundwater drips from above with freezing temperatures and a lack of sunlight, ice accumulates inside these locations despite above-freezing temperatures in the surrounding areas. The highest point on the parkway is 6,053 feet above sea level on Richland Balsam at milepost 431 and is closed from November to April because of inclement weather such as snow and freezing fog from low clouds; the parkway is carried across streams, railway ravines and cross roads by 168 bridges and six viaducts. The parkway runs from the southern terminus of Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive in Virginia at Rockfish Gap to U. S. Route 441 at Oconaluftee in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cherokee, North Carolina.
There is no fee for using the parkway.
Forsyth County, North Carolina
Forsyth County is a county located in the U. S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 350,670, making it the fourth-most populous county in North Carolina, its county seat is Winston-Salem. Forsyth County is included in the Winston-Salem, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, included in the Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, NC Combined Statistical Area. Parts of Forsyth County are in the Yadkin Valley wine region; the county was formed in 1849 from Stokes County. It was named for Colonel Benjamin Forsyth, killed in the War of 1812. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county is in the outer appalachian mountains, has a total area of 413 square miles, of which 408 square miles is land and 4.5 square miles is water. Stokes County - north Rockingham County - northeast Guilford County - east Davidson County - south Davie County - southwest Yadkin County - west Surry County - northwest I-40 I-40 Bus. I-74 I-285 US 52 US 158 US 311 US 421 NC 8 NC 65 NC 66 NC 67 NC 74 NC 109 NC 150 As of the census of 2000, there were 306,067 people, 123,851 households, 81,741 families residing in the county.
The population density was 747 people per square mile. There were 133,093 housing units at an average density of 325 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 68.47% White, 25.61% Black or African American, 0.30% Native American, 1.04% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 3.25% from other races, 1.30% from two or more races. 6.40% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 123,851 households out of which 30.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.90% were married couples living together, 13.50% had a female householder with no husband present, 34.00% were non-families. 28.90% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.30% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the average family size was 2.94. In the county, the population was spread out with 23.90% under the age of 18, 9.60% from 18 to 24, 31.10% from 25 to 44, 22.80% from 45 to 64, 12.60% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years.
For every 100 females there were 91.50 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.40 males. The median income for a household in the county was $42,097, the median income for a family was $52,032. Males had a median income of $36,158 versus $27,319 for females; the per capita income for the county was $23,023. About 7.90% of families and 11.00% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.10% of those under age 18 and 9.70% of those age 65 or over. High Point Winston-Salem King Bethania Kernersville Lewisville Rural Hall Walkertown Clemmons Tobaccoville Germanton Middle Fork Township was split into Middle Fork I Township and Middle Fork II Township in 2003; the Forsyth County Government Center is located at 201 North Chestnut Street in Downtown Winston-Salem. Forsyth County is a member of the regional Northwest Piedmont Council of Governments; the Forsyth County Public Library, founded in 1906, is free for residents of Forsyth and surrounding counties, while all others must pay a small yearly fee for a library card.
The library runs Adult, Children's, Hispanic Outreach programs. Its main "Central Library" is with locations all across the county. Like most major urban counties, Forsyth has seen a trend towards the Democratic Party in recent elections after having voted Republican at every election between 1980 and 2004. Adelaide Fries, author of the 1898 Forsyth County Arts Council of Winston-Salem Forsyth County National Register of Historic Places listings in Forsyth County, North Carolina Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools School district Digital Forsyth, a collaborative digitization project of historic images Forsyth County government official website NCGenWeb Forsyth County - free genealogy resources for the county
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem is a city in and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. With a 2019 estimated population of 251,907 it is the second largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the fifth most populous city in North Carolina, the eighty-ninth most populous city in the United States. With a metropolitan population of 676,673 it is the fourth largest metropolitan area in North Carolina and is expected to keep that fourth spot for many more years. Winston-Salem is home to the tallest office building in the region, 100 North Main Street the Wachovia Building and now known locally as the Wells Fargo Center. Winston-Salem is called the "Twin City" for its dual heritage and "City of the Arts and Innovation" for its dedication to fine arts and theater and technological research. "Camel City" is a reference to the city's historic involvement in the tobacco industry related to locally based R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company's Camel cigarettes. Many locals refer to the city as "Winston" in informal speech.
Another nickname, "the Dash," comes from the in the city's name, although technically it is a hyphen, not a dash. In 2012, the city was listed among the ten best places to retire in the United State by CBS MoneyWatch. Winston-Salem has seen an explosion in growth and urbanization in the downtown area with hotels and apartments being constructed. In 2017, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal ranked the city second in their lists of the most livable downtowns in America; the city of Winston-Salem is a product of the merging of the two neighboring towns of Winston and Salem in 1913. The origin of the town of Salem dates to January 1753, when Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg, on behalf of the Moravian Church, selected a settlement site in the three forks of Muddy Creek, he called this area "die Wachau" named after the ancestral estate of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. The land, just short of 99,000 acres, was subsequently purchased from John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville. On November 17, 1753, the first settlers arrived at what would become the town of Bethabara.
This town, despite its rapid growth, was not designed to be the primary settlement on the tract. Some residents expanded to a nearby settlement called Bethania in 1759. Lots were drawn to select among suitable sites for the location of a new town; the town established on the chosen site was given the name of Salem chosen for it by the Moravians' late patron, Count Zinzendorf. On January 6, 1766, the first tree was felled for the building of Salem. Salem was a typical Moravian settlement congregation with the public buildings of the congregation grouped around a central square, today Salem Square; these included the church, a Brethren's House and a Sisters' House for the unmarried members of the Congregation, which owned all the property in town. For many years only members of the Moravian Church were permitted to live in the settlement; this practice had ended by the American Civil War. Many of the original buildings in the settlement have been restored or rebuilt and are now part of Old Salem Museums & Gardens.
Salem was incorporated as a town in December 1856. Salem Square and "God's Acre", the Moravian Graveyard, since 1772 are the site each Easter morning of the world-famous Moravian sunrise service; this service, sponsored by all the Moravian church parishes in the city, attracts thousands of worshipers each year. In 1849, the Salem congregation sold land north of Salem to the newly formed Forsyth County for a county seat; the new town was called "the county town" or Salem until 1851 when it was re-named Winston for a local hero of the Revolutionary War, Joseph Winston. For its first two decades, Winston was a sleepy county town. In 1868, work began by Salem and Winston business leaders to connect the town to the North Carolina Railroad; that same year, Thomas Jethro Brown of Davie County rented a former livery stable and established the first tobacco warehouse in Winston. That same year, Pleasant Henderson Hanes of Davie, built his first tobacco factory a few feet from Brown's warehouse. In 1875, Richard Joshua Reynolds, of Patrick County, built his first tobacco factory a few hundred feet from Hanes's factory.
By the 1880s, there were 40 tobacco factories in the town of Winston. Hanes and Reynolds would compete fiercely for the next 25 years, each absorbing a number of the smaller manufacturers, until Hanes sold out to Reynolds in 1900 to begin a second career in textiles. In the 1880s, the US Post Office began referring to the two towns as Winston-Salem. In 1899, after nearly a decade of contention, the United States Post Office Department established the Winston-Salem post office in Winston, with the former Salem office serving as a branch. After a referendum the towns were incorporated as "Winston-Salem" in 1913; the Reynolds family, namesake of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, played a large role in the history and public life of Winston-Salem. By the 1940s, 60% of Winston-Salem workers worked either for Reynolds or in the Hanes textile factories; the Reynolds company imported so much French cigarette paper and Turkish tobacco for Camel cigarettes that Winston-Salem was designated by the United States federal government as an official port of entry for the United States, despite the city being 200 miles inland.
Winston-Salem was the eighth-largest port of entry in the United States by 1916. In 1917, the Reynolds company bought 84 acres of property in Winston-Salem and built 180 houses that it sold at cost to workers, to form a development called "Reynoldstown." By the ti
Rowan County, North Carolina
Rowan County is a county located in the U. S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 138,428, its county seat is Salisbury. Located to the northeast of Charlotte, Rowan County is included in its metropolitan area; the first Europeans to enter what is now Rowan County were the Spanish expedition of Juan Pardo in 1567. They established a fort and a mission in the native village of Guatari, believed to be located near the Yadkin River and inhabited by the Wateree. At the time, the area was ruled by a female chief; the Spaniards called the village Salamanca in honor of the city of Salamanca in western Spain, established a mission, headed by a secular priest named Sebastián Montero. The Spaniards abandoned the area; the surviving Spanish left after Native Americans killed all but one soldier at the six forts Pardo established in the interior. The Spanish did not return to the interior of this territory. English colonial settlement of North Carolina came starting in the coastal areas, with some migrants coming from Virginia.
Explorers and fur traders were the first to reach the Piedmont, followed by settlers. The county was formed in 1753 from the northern part of Anson County, it was named for Matthew Rowan, acting governor of North Carolina from 1753 to 1754. It was intended to incorporate all of the lands of the Granville District that had heretofore been included in Anson County; as was typical at the time, Rowan County was a vast territory with an indefinite western boundary. Reductions in its extent began in 1770, when the eastern part of it was combined with the western part of Orange County to become Guilford County. In 1771 the northeastern part of what remained of Rowan County became Surry County. In 1777 the western part of Rowan County became Burke County. After the American Revolutionary War, in 1788 the western part of the now much smaller Rowan County was organized as Iredell County. In 1822 the eastern part became Davidson County. In 1836 the part of Rowan County north of the South Yadkin River became Davie County.
The area was developed for mixed farming in the antebellum period. Cotton continued as a commodity crop for some time. Following Reconstruction, there was continuing change in the county, with industrialization following the construction of railways and textile mills here and elsewhere in the Piedmont. Urban populations increased. A total of six lynchings of African Americans were recorded here in this period, which extended into the early 20th century; this was the second-highest total in the state, a number of extrajudicial murders that two other counties had. At the turn of the 20th century, the state had passed a new constitution and laws erecting barriers to voter registration that disenfranchised most blacks, ending their political progress for decades, after African Americans had been elected to Congress from this state and there had been a Republican-Populist fusionist slate. Both governors Charles Aycock and Robert Glenn, elected in 1900 and 1904 ran campaigns to appeal to whites; the racial terrorism of lynchings enforced white suppression of African Americans.
In 1902 brothers James and Harrison Gillespie, aged 11 and 13, were lynched by a white mob for killing a young white woman working in a field. In August 1906, six African-American men were arrested as suspects in the murder of a farm family; that evening, a white mob stormed the county jail in Salisbury, freeing all the white prisoners, interrogating the black ones, taking out Jack Dillingham, Nease Gillespie, his son John. The mob hanged the three men from a tree in a field and tortured them, shot them numerous times, it was not until after passage of civil rights legislation that most African American recovered the ability to vote. The county has worked to attract new industries since much of the textile industry moved offshore in the late 20th and early 21st centuries; the "250 Fest", celebrating the 250th anniversary of Rowan County, was held in 2003. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 524 square miles, of which 511 square miles is land and 12 square miles is water.
The county's eastern border is formed by the Yadkin River. North of Ellis Crossroads, the South Yadkin River meets the Yadkin; the South Yadkin forms the county's northern border, with Davie County. The southern border is an east-west line. Cabarrus County - south Davidson County - east Davie County - north Iredell County - west Stanly County - southeast Interstate 85 passes through the county from southwest to northeast. In the early 2000s, I-85 underwent an extensive widening in the central and northern part of the county, from exit 68, US 29 Connector north to the Davidson county line. A new bridge over the Yadkin River is planned. U. S. Route 70 enters the northwestern part of west of Cleveland, it runs southeast into Salisbury, where it follows Jake Alexander Boulevard to the southeast and joins US 29 North as Main Street. US 70 continues northeast as Main Street and Salisbury Avenue in Spencer before crossing into Davidson County. U. S. Route 29 forms Main Street in Kannapolis, China Grove, Landis in the southern part of the county.
It joins US 70 as Main Street through Salisbury, as Salisbury Avenue in Spencer. U. S. Route 52 is the main artery for the southeastern part of the county, serving the towns of Gold Hill and Granite Quarry. Just before reaching downtown Salisbury, US-52 joins Interstate 85, which it follows into Dav
Time in the United States
Time in the United States, by law, is divided into nine standard time zones covering the states and its possessions, with most of the United States observing daylight saving time for the spring and fall months. The time zone boundaries and DST observance are regulated by the Department of Transportation. Official and precise timekeeping services are provided by two federal agencies: the National Institute of Standards and Technology; the clocks run by these services are kept synchronized with each other as well as with those of other international timekeeping organizations. It is the combination of the time zone and daylight saving rules, along with the timekeeping services, which determines the legal civil time for any U. S. location at any moment. Before the adoption of four standard time zones for the continental United States, many towns and cities set their clocks to noon when the sun passed their local meridian, pre-corrected for the equation of time on the date of observation, to form local mean solar time.
Noon occurred at different times but time differences between distant locations were noticeable prior to the 19th century because of long travel times and the lack of long-distance instant communications prior to the development of the telegraph. The use of local solar time became awkward as railways and telecommunications improved. American railroads maintained many different time zones during the late 1800s; each train station set its own clock making it difficult to coordinate train schedules and confusing passengers. Time calculation became a serious problem for people traveling by train, according to the Library of Congress; every city in the United States used a different time standard so there were more than 300 local sun times to choose from. Time zones were therefore a compromise, relaxing the complex geographic dependence while still allowing local time to be approximate with mean solar time. Railroad managers tried to address the problem by establishing 100 railroad time zones, but this was only a partial solution to the problem.
Weather service chief Cleveland Abbe had needed to introduce four standard time zones for his weather stations, an idea which he offered to the railroads. Operators of the new railroad lines needed a new time plan that would offer a uniform train schedule for departures and arrivals. Four standard time zones for the continental United States were introduced at noon on November 18, 1883, when the telegraph lines transmitted time signals to all major cities. In October 1884, the International Meridian Conference at Washington DC adopted a proposal which stated that the prime meridian for longitude and timekeeping should be one that passes through the centre of the transit instrument at the Greenwich Observatory in the United Kingdom; the conference therefore established the Greenwich Meridian as the prime meridian and Greenwich Mean Time as the world's time standard. The US time-zone system grew from this, in which all zones referred back to GMT on the prime meridian. In 1960, the International Radio Consultative Committee formalized the concept of Coordinated Universal Time, which became the new international civil time standard.
UTC is, within about 1 second, mean solar time at 0°. UTC does not observe daylight saving time. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, but GMT is no longer defined by the scientific community. UTC is one of several related successors to GMT. Standard time zones in the United States are defined at the federal level by law 15 USC §260; the federal law establishes the transition dates and times at which daylight saving time occurs, if observed. It is the authority of the Secretary of Transportation, in coordination with the states, to determine which regions will observe which of the standard time zones and if they will observe daylight saving time; as of August 9, 2007, the standard time zones are defined in terms of hourly offsets from UTC. Prior to this they were based upon the mean solar time at several meridians 15° apart west of Greenwich. Only the full-time zone names listed below are official. View the standard time zone boundaries here; the United States uses nine standard time zones.
As defined by US law they are: From east to west, the four time zones of the contiguous United States are: Eastern Time Zone, which comprises the states on the Atlantic coast and the eastern two thirds of the Ohio Valley. Central Time Zone, which comprises the Gulf Coast, Mississippi Valley, most of the Great Plains. Mountain Time Zone, which comprises the states and portions of states that include the Rocky Mountains and the western quarter of the Great Plains. Pacific Time Zone, which comprises the states on the Pacific coast, plus Nevada and the Idaho panhandle. Alaska Time Zone, which comprises most of the state of Alaska. Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone, which includes Hawaii and most of the length of the Aleutian Islands chain. Samoa Time Zone, which comprises American Samoa. Chamorro Time Zone, which comprises Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Atlantic Time Zone, which comprises Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands; some United States Minor Outlying Islands are outside the time zones defined by 15 U.
S. C. § exist in waters defined by Nautical time. In practice, military crews may
Geographic data related to Surry County, North Carolina at OpenStreetMap
Geographic data related to 
Surry County, North Carolina
