History of the Cary Chamber

The settling of Cary was a direct result of the arrival of the North Carolina Railroad in 1854. Largely a rural and agricultural community, the railroad created a viable transportation link to the world. Cary began to flourish in the 1850s after the decision was made to run the North Carolina Railroad through town.

With the arrival of the railroad connecting towns like Raleigh and Greensboro across the state, transportation was revolutionized in North Carolina. A prosperous future was ahead for Cary and North Carolina as real estate values and intrastate trade increased along with improvements in travel, business development and mail service.

The name Cary was used for the first time in 1856 when the local post office was established. Frank Page named it after a gentleman he admired, General Samuel Cary, who had visited the town. On April 3, 1871, the General Assembly passed an act that incorporated the Town of Cary in Wake County. It is estimated that there were fewer than 150 citizens at that time. The first census taken in 1880 showed 316 people living in the town with an average age of less than 22 years old.

Professions and organizations slowly emerged as people began to migrate to this new, prospering town. The first doctor arrived around 1869, and in 1870 the first school opened its doors in the same spot Cary Elementary stands today. In 1907, Cary established the first public high school in North Carolina, becoming a model to all other schools in the state.

The Bank of Cary was chartered in 1909 and added an economic strength to downtown. With more travelers passing through Cary, the need for lodging arose leading to the opening of Cary's first hotel, the Walker Hotel. Today, the building is one of the most famous pieces of architecture in Cary dating from the late 1800s and was recently renovated to house the Page-Walker Arts and History Center.

Cary was largely a manufacturing town until the 1920s, when service and retail industries began to emerge. Stores were springing up everywhere as the streets of downtown became more heavily traveled. Major roads tended to follow railroad tracks during this period so what is now Chatham Street was the main artery to Raleigh.

The population grew by over 60 percent in the 1920’s. Schools and churches expanded and the town opened its first fire station and Chamber of Commerce (like many other Chambers, it was closed due to the Great Depression). In the mid-twenties, Cary constructed its water and sewer systems. Deep wells became the primary source of water for over 40 years.

Cary became an attractive spot to relocate and the development of Research Triangle Park (RTP) in the 1950s greatly influenced the town's growth. Each year Cary's boundaries stretched towards RTP. Eventually, RTP affected Cary's growth more than its planned targeted cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. RTP attracted industry giants like IBM, and accompanying employees caused the population to double in the 1950s and 1960s.

Cary invited most any industry of almost any description into town until the 1950s, but things began to change shortly thereafter. Most citizens were new, and had moved to Cary because of the residential qualities. They had moved to a clean, industry-free town and they wanted to protect those qualities.

With such growth, the amount of developed land had to be increased. People needed a place to live. MacGregor Downs was created in the 1960s and flourished. It was the first of many developments to be constructed around Cary over the next 25 years.

In the early 1970s the Town Council launched a "balanced growth" strategy that was designed to change Cary from a bedroom community to what it has become today. Adopted by the Council on September 22, 1977, it states that Cary was in need of industry to accompany the population growth.

Following the success of MacGregor,- Kildaire Farms, Preston, and Lochmere developments were built in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1990s brought further residential growth in areas like Barrington, Regency Estates and Wessex and Cary Glen in 2001. Today, most of Cary’s residential growth is occurring in the north part of the Town. As developments flourished, so did Cary's growth. Since 1970, Cary has grown from 7,640 residents to over 110,000 today and is now North Carolina's seventh largest municipality.

Chamber History

Cary's original Chamber was formed in the 1920s but was unable to survive during the Great Depression. In 1962, a new Chamber was formed and it opened with less than a dozen members and Thomas S. Secrest, Sr. as the first president.

The Chamber's first major project began that same decade. Jordan Hall, Cary's first community center, was built on two acres of land donated by one of the Chamber's first members, G. H. (Buck) Jordan, Jr., who also built the facility at cost. Chamber members paid for the construction, operation, and maintenance. Jordan Hall was an immediate benefit to the community, but began to take a toll on the Chamber's finances. Resources were soon depleted. Luckily, the Chamber was supported strongly by the Town who agreed to purchase it from the Chamber in1975.

That transaction put the Chamber back on positive footing and for the first time hired a full time executive director. The Cary Chamber promoted the town as the perfect location and marketed it as being "at the hub of the Triangle." One of the first slogans, "Where Better Living Begins," was used to target young families with a message promoting Cary as a great place in which to raise a family and the ideal location to reach all the other good things in the Triangle.

The Chambers beginning was met with challenges. Oftentimes when the Chamber tried to bring in certain types of business or industry into town, members of the Town Council had mixed feelings. According to the Chamber's 1976 president, G. Richard Ladd, the Chamber and Council were not always on the same page. In an effort to ratify the relationship and end disagreement, the Chamber appointed a committee to draft a statement on economic development that both town officials and business leaders could support. Chaired by Russell Buxton, III, the committee and the statement it drafted became the basis for the Cary Economic Policy.

The Cary Chamber was the catalyst in getting the first Economic Policy adopted. After the adoption, the Town Council moved quickly to make more land available for industry. The zoning ordinance was amended to include industrial performance districts (IPDs), now called planned unit developments (PUDs), in which developers had great flexibility in locating plants as long as they followed rigid rules for setbacks and buffers. Industry had been confined previously to a corridor along the railroads. The "clincher" in attracting industry proved to be Cary's livability. Buxton said prospects wanted to see the whole town first, often waiting until their second or third visits to look at specific sites.

The Council also agreed to provide the Chamber of Commerce with financial help if it would be the town's official industry recruiter. The first assistance, given in December 1977, was $1,500 to pay for a promotional brochure. By 1982, the town was allocating $50,000 annually to help the Chamber and by the 1990s $75,000 had been allocated towards the efforts.

Cary and the Chamber rolled the industrial welcome mat out just in time for the booming 1980s. Locating here during the decade were over 40 manufacturing, research, or service industries that went on to employ thousands of residents. Some of the largest of those who have moved to Cary in the last 40 years include SAS Institute, American Airlines Reservation Center, IBM, WakeMed Cary Hospital, Oxford University Press, John Deere, Cotton Incorporated, Siemens, Caterpillar, and MCI WorldCom - Most recently Infineon, R.H. Donnelley and Qualcomm.

Also built during the 1980s were 17 new shopping centers and a multitude of other commercial enterprises. The 1990s brought more of the same. As a result, the ratio of residential to non-residential property dropped to about 70:30 by the end of the decade. The tax rate also dropped. It averaged 77 cents per $100 during the 1977 - 1984 valuation cycle, 64 cents during the 1985 - 1992 cycle, and 54 cents through the end of the 1990s and today.

The Cary Economic Policy was a major turning point for the Chamber of Commerce as well as for the town. Once it became the town's economic development office, the Chamber launched a professional industrial recruitment drive and increased support services for those businesses already here. Then, as the business community grew, so did the Chamber's membership, treasury, facilities, programs, and influence. Membership rose from 400 to 1,200 between 1986 and 1994, the first eight years of Howard Johnson's tenure as president.

Housed for 12 years in the old centennial headquarters building, the Chamber purchased the original Town Hall site at 114 West Chatham Street and erected its own building in 1983. Within 10 years that building was too small. The Chamber erected a new $1 million facility across Academy Street from the Town Hall Campus in 1993 and now employs a staff of seven.

Cary and the Chamber Today

For more than a decade, Cary has earned numerous awards for its high quality of life and thriving business community. The town is repeatedly ranked among the top regions in North Carolina to start a business, buy a house, raise a family and retire. In 2004 Money Magazine named Cary the “hottest town” on the East Coast with a population over 100,000.

In Cary, safety comes first. The Town has been ranked as the safest city in the South and the ninth safest out of 354 large cities in the nation. The historic downtown area and intimate neighborhoods give Cary a hometown feeling that its residents have grown to love.

By offering an abundance of educational, cultural and recreational opportunities, Cary has solidified its reputation as a great place to raise a family. School-age children (ages 5-19) occupy about 23 percent of the Cary population.

Cary’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources Department plans and provides a variety of enjoyable and cost-effective sporting, environmental, historical and cultural arts programs and services to area residents. The town has more than 20 public parks, a greenway system of six park trails and 11 greenway trails, three special use facilities and eight staffed facilities.

While great location is something the Town just happens to have, good planning is something business and community leaders developed. City government carefully maintains a comprehensive growth plan that defines the world-class community we are today. The Town Council values the citizens’ concerns and desires by encouraging their participation and allowing them to have a voice in their government.

The Cary Chamber has been there to support and manage that growth every step of the way. Whether it is recruiting new industry or providing a network or support for existing business and industry, the Cary Chamber has maintained the highest standards for its members, the citizens of Cary and the community as a whole.

Cary has come a long way from the sleepy little village at the turn of the century. With the help of the Cary Chamber of Commerce and the relationship built with the Town of Cary, residents and business owners enjoy a quality of life second to none. A great deal of thanks are due to those visionaries, citizens, Chamber members and town leaders who have given their time and efforts to make Cary one of the biggest small towns in the country. The weight of 40+ years plants the Cary Chamber firmly in the ground and serves as a faithful reminder to each of us that history is ours to make, one day at a time, even as we look toward the future.