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Richmond County is a county located on the central southern border of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 42,946. Its county seat is Rockingham. Richmond County comprises the Rockingham, NC Micropolitan Statistical Area. The Hamlet-Rockingham metropolitan area has a population of 22,579.
[edit] History
The county was formed in 1779 from Anson County. It was named for Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond and Lennox who was an Englishman and a member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom who sided with the colonists in America during the American Revolution. Kader Keaton, a colonial American officer in the American Revolutionary War, was a founder of Anglo-American settlement in Richmond County. During the 19th century, it became developed for plantation culture. In 1899 the southeastern part of Richmond County was organized as Scotland County. [edit] RailroadsThe city of Hamlet, in the southeastern sector of Richmond County, is known for its railway history. Prior to the turn of the 20th century, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad moved to Hamlet, helping the town become a crossroads for rail spurs extending from Florida to New York and all points east and west. In 1900, the SAL Railroad constructed the Seaboard Air Line Passenger Depot in Hamlet, a Victorian-style train station that has become one of the most photographed train stations in the eastern United States. The depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and was fully restored in 2004. In 2009, the city of Hamlet dedicated a new building to the Tornado steam engine locomotive—the first one in the State of North Carolina. The original locomotive was built in 1839 by D.J. Burr & Associates of Richmond, Virginia. It was briefly captured by Federal forces during the American Civil War before being repatriated. In 1892, the Tornado was featured in the Great Centennial Celebration of Raleigh, North Carolina. Hamlet is the home of the National Railroad Museum and Hall of Fame, a striking collection of artifacts from the Seaboard Air Line Railroad spanning decades of time. [edit] Timeline
[edit] Population History
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