Eng-112 Profile Essay

Fayetteville, NC – A Hometown for Heroes

Stephen Michael Thayer

DeVry University

Fayetteville, NC – A Hometown for Heroes

The city of Fayetteville in North Carolina is full of history and carries a long military tradition of housing one of the country’s largest bases. Fayetteville had it’s golden years back in the late 1700’s when it was doing so well it was even considered a top candidate to be the future state capitol for North Carolina. After the construction of Fort Bragg in 1918 the city saw it’s population boom and it continued to grow steadily after World War II. In recent years, however, the city has gained a very negative reputation as a cesspool for crime. Despite all this, there are citizens of the town that still believe this once thriving town can once again return to it’s former glory.

As recently as 1999, downtown Fayetteville had become synonymous with strip clubs and late night bars that thrived on the money of lower enlisted members of the Army. School kids joked about not wanting to be caught downtown after dark and high ranking military officials warned their young recruits to stay away from the debauchery that lurked there. For a time it was almost as if the citizens of Fayetteville had resigned themselves to living in a town that had thrown in their lot with a bad name instead of trying to change it. There were some who feared that the important pieces of Fayetteville’s history were going to be lost amongst the reports of muggings and murders that had been running rampant.

A group of local businessmen and real estate moguls got together and decided to attempt to strike at the core of the problem, the downtown area itself. Their thought process was to remove the rotting heart of the city and replace it with something it’s citizens could be proud of. They would tear down the strip clubs, bars and abandoned buildings to replace them with thriving local businesses and historical housing that would show visitors a much more inviting...