April 14, 2024, Burgaw Depot
Around Our Town with Gene Merritt
Blog # 29
April 14, 2024
Burgaw Depot
I am pleased to feature the Burgaw Depot in my latest blog. As you may be aware, I am working with Steve Unger at Eastern Carolina Rail to promote restored rail service from Wilmington to Raleigh, especially passenger service. We propose several stops along the route to Raleigh, and Burgaw would be the first. Other stops would include Wallace, Warsaw, Goldsboro, and Selma. In addition to passenger rail service along the route, commercial traffic would be included. In that regard, the NC State Ports Authority would benefit greatly from this route, as opposed to their current conditions. They are very much In favor of the project.
The Raleigh to Wilmington Corridor has been approved by the US government as a designated route and issued the NC DOT Rail Division a $ 500,000 study grant. That study is underway.
To date, Eastern Carolina Rail has sponsored community meetings in Burgaw, Wallace, and Warsaw. We have a meeting scheduled in Goldsboro on May 14.
To date, our response has been excellent with almost 100% approval of this idea. It is very encouraging.
The reality of the situation is that it will take time to restore this route. New tracks must be laid from Castle Hayne to Wallace.
I encourage you to support this project by expressing your support to your elected representatives on a local, state, and federal level.
The following is a history of Burgaw, written by Bill Reaves in 1979. It is, in my view, a great read. I hope you enjoy it.
Burgaw History
Burgaw is a railroad town that owes its very existence to the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad Company that routed its tracks across the Burgaw Creek, where small cross-roads trading post had heretofore existed.
In October, 1836, the work was begun on the tracks of the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad, later to be called Wilmington and Weldon and Atlantic Coastline/Seaboard Railroads. The original company was chartered in January, 1834, and when the last spike was driven on March 7, 1840, this railroad line was the longest in the world, 161½ miles.
"In January, 1854, the post office department began to call this location, Burgaw Depot. The small trading post had heretofore been called simply "Cypress Grove." The depot is the oldest in the state circa 1850 and is part of the North Carolina Civil War Trail.
"During the Civil War, the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad served as a lifeline of the Confederacy. It carried fresh troops to the battlefields and brought back the sick and wounded. Military supplies and foodstuffs were carried from the port of Wilmington to the fighting fronts in Virginia, etc. The depot at Burgaw saw much of the activity during the duration of the war." The railroad and its depots quickly fell to the Union forces after the surrender of Wilmington on February 22, 1865. The interior of the warehouse still bears the charred scars of a Union cavalry attack in 1863. In 1865, the depot was a Confederate headquarters for retreating generals and their troops for weeks after the fall of Fort Fisher and Wilmington. It also became the holding site for six thousand or more prisoners of war for over a week in February 1865 while a massive prisoner exchange was negotiated in Richmond and Washington, D.C. The Depot was a vital communications center.
Pender County was separated from New Hanover County in February, 1875, the last of 100 counties to be formed in North Carolina. "W.H. James, a civil engineer, who was employed by the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, examined the land lying between the railroad tracks and Burgaw Creek, and reported it to be a good place for the town and well situated for drainage."
"On February 6, 1876, the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad Company deeded a plot of land to the Pender County Board of Commissioners for the establishment of the town and for the construction of the new courthouse."
The town of Burgaw was incorporated by an act of the North Carolina General Assembly (Private Laws, Chapter 23) on February 25, 1879, and on December 8, 1879, the name of the post office was changed from "Burgaw Depot" to just plain "Burgaw".
Even with such a rich historic past, the town still possesses modern facilities for education, industry, and medical care, along with Pender County's government offices. Burgaw offers educational opportunities from preschool to continuing education for adults; the town contains several preschools, Burgaw Elementary School, Burgaw Middle School, and a Cape Fear Community College campus, all located within the town limits. Pender High School is located just minutes outside of town on North Carolina Highway 53 West. The town also provides intermediate health care services, including several doctors' offices and Pender Memorial Hospital, part of the New Hanover Regional Medical Network. Burgaw is also the home of the Pender County Courthouse.
Source: History of Burgaw, North Carolina, Centennial Edition
By Bill Reaves, 1979
