Washington's Southern Tour

Eden, NC

James Barnett dug this canal near the Dan River in 1813 to harness the current's power. Over the following century that waterpower drove a growing cluster of textile mills—eventually the largest continuously operating textile complex in the northern Piedmont. The canal helped turn this stretch of riverbank into an engine of Southern industry.

Burlington, NC

In 1857 the North Carolina Railroad built its maintenance and repair shops here, and the town that grew up around them took the name Company Shops — later renamed Burlington. The shops operated through the Civil War before closing in 1866.

Orange County, NC

Stagecoach Rock marks a spot along one of the old overland roads that threaded through the North Carolina Piedmont in the era before railroads, when horse-drawn coaches were the fastest way to carry passengers and mail between towns. The carved names and dates — one hand from 1828, another from 1906 — show how travelers and locals returned to the same landmark across generations, leaving their marks on a stone that had become a familiar waypoint. Rocks like this often served as resting points, meeting places, or simple mileposts on journeys that took days rather than hours.

Orange County, NC

Around 1680 to 1710, a village of the Occaneechi people stood a half mile east of here, astride the Great Trading Path that carried commerce deep into the Carolina interior. In 1701 the explorer John Lawson passed through and recorded his impressions of the community. The Occaneechi were influential traders whose position on the path made them a hub of exchange between Native nations and colonists.