Burlington, N. C.; Alamance County/ Piedmont Area

Burlington, NC
(Alamance county/ Piedmont triad area)

Welcome to Burlington, a growing city centrally located between the Atlantic Ocean & the Appalachian Mountains. Burlington residents have easy access to employment, shopping, recreation, & medical care. Interstate highways I-40/ I-85 divides Alamance county and puts Burlington less than 45 minutes from Raleigh/ Durham, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, High Point, & Winston-Salem. Burlington was originally called Company Shops. Company Shops was the repair and maintenance facility for the North Carolina Railroad. Company Shops survived the Civil War, but the face of the town had changed. In the late 1800's, the railroad facility moved to Spencer, North Carolina. On this, the area citizens cried, and called for a new name for the town. The area's industry had then changed to mainly textile manufacturing. For reasons still unknown today, the name Burlington was accepted as the new name for the thriving town. Incorporation took place in 1893. Textile mills sprang up around Alamance County, providing a livelihood for the area's residents, but also attracting people from other areas to move here. Located close to the Virginia and N. C. stateline, tourists soon flocked to Burlington as mill outlets and local textile goods shopping centers soon began to appear in the area. Today, due to the late ' 90's economic slowdown, several of Burlington's mills have closed, as other businesses in the area, but the people here continue to strive on and bring more new businesses to the continuing growing area.

Burlington, today, is well known for its

very mild climate , providing many days of sunshine & just enough rain to keep the crops growing on the many farms that dot the Alamance county landscape. Our winters are rather mild and not too severely cold and our summers are not too hot for us to deal with. We do occasionally have to watch out for hurricanes, as was the case in ' 89 for Hugo and later in ' 97 for Floyd in the last century. There are always a few every hurricane season that brush our coast or come inland to give us a scare. Most travel northeast, along our coastline, following the strong Gulf Stream that runs up from the southern tropics. Our N. C. coast is known for it's Outer Banks area, great fishing, and houses and condos that can be found all along it. The first major hospital in that area opened up in early 2002. Before, residents had to go an hour drive or more to get medical care, except for a few local home doctors. Our mountains are known also and are best known as the

Smokey Mountains , which get their nickname from the morning fog that hovers around them all year long. One of America's biggest castles is in Asheville, N. C., the Biltmore House & Gardens. It was built by the dairy tychoon in the 30's who started the Biltmore Dairies, well known in the Carolinas and southeast states. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a scenic pleasurable winding road thru the N. C. mountains into Virginia, and back down to the north of Georgia bordering Tennessee along the way.

Alamance county proudly hosts 12 golf courses & a regionally known baseball team - the Burlington Indians. Burlington residents are proud of our Dentzel Carousel, with its hand carved animals--one of only 14 left in the world. You can still hitch a ride on one of these beautiful animals for 50 cents today. Burlington has a local theatre, the Paramount, that now hosts plays and productions, but once was a movie theatre that attracted us all to town on Saturday afternoons. Two movie theaters keep Burlington residents entertained with the latest blockbusters. Don't woory about places to eat ! There are many steak and seafood restaurants, fast food places, barbecue places, oriental eating places, and for our growing hispanic community, Mexican restaurants.

Higher education in Alamance County includes Alamance Community College in Graham, N. C. and Elon University in the town of Elon, N. C.. There are 3 main hospitals, Alamance County Hospital out in the county, Burlington Memorial Hospital in Burlington, and the recently opened new Alamance Regional Hospital, also in Burlington.