Remembering when the Burbs were country (Raleigh, Cary: chapel, house, neighborhood)

[uncletupelo]

As a Raleigh native, I often ride by new developments and remember what used to be there. Some are improvements, but many are gross examples of anywhere USA with strip malls and chains on every other corner. This is a remember when post. I remember when when Crabtree Mall was a farm, Six Forks, Ray, Honeycutt, and Lead Mine were bucolic country roads. There were vast woods beside and in front of Carroll Jr High school. Shelly Lake did not exist. Millbrook road stopped at Six Forks road. Northclift subdivision was the way outer burbs. If you were not born at the old Rex hospital, you were a transplant. Falls Lake was full of native farmers and rural citizens. Colony shopping center was a corn field. Six Forks dead ended at Wake Forest Road. Atlantic Avenue is where kids road motorcycles. Wakefield was owned by the Greg Poole family. There was a store and a bridge at Lassiter Mill. There was also a country store at the bridge on Anderson drive. Falls Village was not upscale. Cows grazed on Spring Forest below Balls of the Moose. Raleigh Community Hospital(now Duke) was an old homestead. The beltline stopped at New Bern Avenue. Wake Med was for the poor. That is all for now.

[sacredgrooves]

I remember when Kildaire Farm Road was a farm, Cary Towne Center was Cary Village Mall(about 1/3 its present size), and even prior when there wasn't a mall(although I was pretty young when they built it). I remember Cary having 2 stoplights and less than 10k people (when I moved there in '77). My brother, friends and I (at age 8) routinely rode our bikes from our neighborhood a couple miles down Seabrook avenue to the mall and across the lazy 2 lane Walnut street using St. Michaels' Church as a cut-through so we could go to the arcade " time out".
My grandparents lived near the intersection of Glenwood and Millbrook and that was out of the Raleigh city limits...I could go on and on lol.

[nascarfan]

Ditto on the memories. By the way, great screen name uncletupelo. I wish I'd snagged it. Maybe I'll register as GoldenSmog.

[uncletupelo]

Blue Mountain. Six String Drag, The Backsliders. V-Roys, Old 97's, Whiskeytown or The Jayhawks may suit you well. They have me.

[rnc2mbfl]

I remember the old Millbrook Post Office. It was said to be the smallest Post Office in the nation. It was at the intersection of Millbrook and Old Wake Forest Rd.
I also remember Falls of Neuse being a two lane country road leading to North Ridge (which was a satellite annexation of Raleigh with county land between it and the rest of the city). I remember landing at RDU when we moved to Raleigh and the airport was literally just the current Southwest Airlines ticketing counter and the adjacent security screening area as its waiting room. You had to de-plane by stairs and walk under a tent like breezeway to the terminal building and get your luggage off the back of one of those daisy-chained cart things in the parking lot. At this time, Raleigh was about the size of Cary and Cary was about the size of Morrisville (if not smaller). I think the entire Wake Co. had far less people than the current population of Raleigh alone. To put that in other terms, the number of Wake County residents was probably equal to just the number of people who have moved to the county since 2000.

[uncletupelo]

In 1950 Raleigh was around 65k. In 1970 Cary was 12k or so. The first post WW2 suburb built in what was then north Raleigh was Drewry Hills.Some ranches there today sell for a million skins. The families that moved there back then were worried that they were too far out. In the late 60's North Hills was an oasis for families with roots above the Mason Dixon. My, how times have changed.

[raleighjayne]

I've only been here for 9 years, but I've seen a HUGE difference in North Raleigh since then. Durant was a 2 lane, windy road from Falls to Capital. People used to miss the turn onto Durant all the time when they were headed to our house in Falls River--no Kohl's or Wake Med at that intersection. I miss having the Pullen House at that corner. I remember when we had to drive to at least Strickland & Falls to get to any restaurants or grocery stores other than Food Lion.

Two of the things I remember most from when we first moved here were seeing Quaker Instant Grits commercials on TV and moonshine busts in Johnston County. I swear for the first year we were here, there were news reports about once a month of moonshine busts. They said that Johnston County was the moonshine capitol of the US. I don't see those commercials anymore and I hear of moonshine only very occasionally now.

[leighbhe]

Coming from chapel hill, there was no I40, and that made raleigh FAR away. traveling up 54 the entire way and thinking downtown raleigh was the big city! Telling people I went to the high school and everyone knew what I meant because there was only one high school in chapel hill. Paying 2 bucks to roller skate on franklin street with heels on wheels, that operated out of the back of a van in the parking lot of the happy store.

Leigh

[lamishra]

I remember when there was no I 40 to get to the beach! We had to go out to Garner on 421 and drive through downtown Benson to get to Wilmington! I also remember "Sportsworld" in Cary, a roller skating rink before it was the Ice House. Also those areas off Tryon Road, Penny Road and 10-10 were the absolute BOONIES. I also remember anything north of Sawmill and Sixx Forks Road being completely undeveloped and Wake Forest was like a different country all together. Clayton was just beautiful, open farmland. I also remember the old Cary Village mall with the food court in the middle!

[Nims]

Hi --

if anyone has other 'remembories' (as my kids used to call it) to add to this thread, would you please include the decade you're talking about (to give us an idea of how long this change has taken)

thanks!
Nims