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Don't forget I-40 didn't even exist. To travel between Raleigh and Chapel Hill or Durham it was 54 or 70, and Cary was nothing more than a couple of neighborhoods.
I mentioned that in my previous post, too. I believe I-40 was connected to Raleigh in 1989, but I might be off by one year. It wasn't finished all the way to Wilmington until what, 1994?
In 1988 it took almost 2 hours to get from the Guilford College area of Greensboro to Stonehenge in N. Raleigh via I-85/US 70. The same drive now takes about 40 minutes less time. It really is hard to fully comprehend not only all the growth, but all the change that has occurred in NC over the past 20 years!
I came to Raleigh in 1981. My store was the old Color Tile store on Capital Blvd. (It's now full of naughty nighties and sex toys)
My first day in the store, and older gent came in wearing overalls, brogan work shoes, a flannel shirt, and a Coker Hybrid ball cap. He was going to buy a new kitchen floor for his wife. After we dickered a bit, while I'm trying to impress my staff with sales wizardry, he said, "Well, I don't know. Maybe I better bring my wife in here the next time we're in town, and let her pick out what she wants." I parried, I cajoled, I pushed, and I pulled, but he wouldn't budge off of that " ..... we're from out of town...." stuff. Finally, I gave up, and began simply chatting with him. I asked, "So, you say you're from out of town? Where do you live anyway?" He said, "Me and the missus, we live way out yonder over in Cary."
We said good-bye to each other, and I then turned to glare at my staff, which was rolling with laughter. "What's so funny, boys?" "That man told you he lives way out in Cary???" "Yeah", I said. What's so hilarious about that? Where's Cary anyway?"
"Cary!!!" they hooted, "is a little old farm community of about 5,000 people, and it's about 11 miles from here!"
I bought my house in Cary in May, 1993.
I just squeaked in under the July '03 marker. I'm stayin'. Y'all go on home, now, y'hear?
Once you went to Crabtree Valley Mall, Creedmoor Road took you to... Creedmoor!!! It was a LONG ride with nothing to see but gorgeous green scenery!
It also took you to the house where I grew up, which was close to Creedmoor & Highway 98. We had to drive to Crabtree for groceries!
There was no Falls Lake, and no Jordan Lake.
Pleasant Union Elementary is now at the exact spot where I used to catch the bus to Jeffrey's Grove. There were trailers at all the schools. I was in high school before I didn't at least have one class in a trailer. It does surprise me that people think mobile classrooms are a new thing! Nope, they were there in the good old days too.
Pleasant Union Elementary is now at the exact spot where I used to catch the bus to Jeffrey's Grove. There were trailers at all the schools. I was in high school before I didn't at least have one class in a trailer. It does surprise me that people think mobile classrooms are a new thing! Nope, they were there in the good old days too.
When I moved here Davis Drive and High House was a two lane road and Stone Creek was just an abandoned, run down mini mart on a parcel of land with a field and trees. The only neighborhood on Carpenter Fire Station was Cary Park and that's all... not even a road in sight for any of the other neighborhoods now there!!
That's in just three years. I can just imagine what it must have looked like to the others before 2004.
I move here in August 2004. Cary Park was just being developed and you could hardly find it unless you were squinting for Carpenter Fire Station Rd. Davis and High House had that boarded-up building there across from the Lowes. Those were good time weren't they? ;-)
My husband's work brought us up here in August 2005, after my daughter graduated from HS, and I retired. We have been in the very middle of all of this growth, yet I find myself describing to friends still on the coast, "Cary, as the best of what must have been imagined years ago, as 'suburban' living."
We love calling Cary 'home,' and tell others we are Cary-eans. It has been interesting to get the low-down on things from a best friend from college days (down at UNCW), and a Raleigh native -- how Inner-Loopers view the outer, N. Raleigh v. Cary, and the like.
If you really want to see "a mess" made of a formerly beautiful area, drive down to Wilmington. We were never so happy to get away from a place, and we were natives, no less. For all of the whining and belly-aching about growth and restrictions, be glad there are restrictions -- coming from a city with few, if any, I'll settle for the restrictions like those here ANY day. My sister comes to visit, and complains about traffic in and around the Raleigh area, but I am pleased to point out to her that the traffic moves, and it is not from one stoplight at a city block to another.
I moved here from Winston-Salem in August of 1986. I-40 existed then, by the way, but did not connect with the rest of I-40 (which ended in Greensboro, they later relabeled I-85 as I-85/I-40 once it went through to Raleigh). We'd have to either take 70 to I-85 to get to Winston, or we'd take I-40 to the Durham Freeway, then have to cut through Durham to I-85, as Durham Freeway ended around Duke.
Millbrook Rd was about 4 or 5 different roads. Same for Davis Drive. Highway 55 was almost deserted from RTP to Highway 64, except for the intersection at Carpenter. Both were 2 lane roads, of course. There were only a couple of places to eat in RTP when I started co-op in 1988.
Cary pretty much ended at Old Apex going towards RTP and Lochmere/Macgregor the other way. Oxford Hunt was being built. Parkway PUD was still in planning stages. Preston was a ways off. Apex was extremely tiny. Blink and you'd miss it.
North Raleigh pretty much ended around Ravenscroft HS. People further out than that were living pretty far out.
By the time I got out of school and bought my first house near the Y in Cary around 1992 or so, Davis went all the way through.But it was a country road. The gas station at High House was about the only thing there (for the record, it was only boarded up as Stone Creek was coming to fruition). Morrisville Parkway had some stuff on it and Preston was pushing towards Davis by then.
I move here in August 2004. Cary Park was just being developed and you could hardly find it unless you were squinting for Carpenter Fire Station Rd. Davis and High House had that boarded-up building there across from the Lowes. Those were good time weren't they? ;-)
We moved to Cary Park in May 2003 and many friends from up north drove down to see us. After 10 hours in the car they would come across Morrisville-Carpenter road from I-40 and cross NC55. Everyone thought we must have given them the wrong directions-there couldn't POSSIBLY be a neighborhood out that far.
Now look at it only 4 years later.
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