DeSell & Co Realty Group Buyer's Guide Summer 2015 | Page 49

History of Cameron, North Carolina

Born of a plank road and a railroad and spurred
on by the turpentine and dewberry industries,
Cameron, North Carolina, prospered in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The
Fayetteville plank road arrived in the area in the
1850‟s, and with the arrival of the railroad in
1875, a town was planned and built by people
taking advantage of the opportunities the railroad offered.
Cameron was the end of the run for the Raleigh and Augusta Railroad. Entrepreneurs settled here
and made a substantial living in various businesses, notably turpentine distilleries, the mercantile and
hotel trades, and especially dewberry farming and consignment. The dewberry business became so
successful that for many years Cameron was considered the dewberry capital of the world. Surrounded by the farmland of Moore County, the planned town developed along the main thoroughfare, Carthage Street, radiating from the railroad around which its major activities centered.
Along Carthage Street, Cameron‟s railroad men, merchants, and farmers built a compact community
consisting of one and two story frame and brick houses, stores, and churches displaying elements
of the styles popular in the era of 1875 to 1925. Though the trains no longer stop in the town and
dewberries are not grown on a large scale anymore, Cameron still retains its turn of the century
character and its feeling of a modest, isolated, concentrated village.

Cameron Antique Festival Calendar:
Spring Antique Fair: 1st Saturday in May
Summer Sizzler Sale in July
Fall Antique Fair: 1st Saturday in Oc ѽ