Morrisville Town Center Plan - 2007

Appendix 2

The Civil War touched Morrisville in 1861, when many of its sons enlisted to fight for the Confederacy. The railroad took many men off to war and four years later brought war itself to Morrisville. Union and Confederate soldiers skirmished along the rail line to Morrisville and clashed over a train filled with supplies. After the war, Morrisvillians again looked to the railroad and its promise of prosperity. The next decades saw more homes, churches, and businesses built around the crossroads community transforming it into a town. Textiles played a role in Morrisville’s history typical of many other towns in North Carolina. In 1910, Samuel Horne built a two-storey frame mill for knitting socks, and at least nine small houses for his workers. The mill lasted only about twenty years, but a number of the houses still remain in varying condition. During the Twentieth Century the influence of the railroad was replaced by new forms of travel. A new wave of building began in the 1920s capitalizing on the increasing automobile traffic between Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham. In 1939, the General Assembly laid plans for what would become the Raleigh-Durham Airport and work soon began on another influential factor on Morrisville’s future.

This guide points out some of the houses and structures associated with Morrisville’s history. Visit each of them to better understand the Town’s beginnings

Photo by Ernest Dollar

Detail

from the Page-

2

Ferrell House

55 │ Town Center Plan

January 2007