Hoke County, North Carolina: History
=== Early history ===
The original inhabitants of the region eventually constituting Hoke County were Tuscarora Native Americans. Ancestors of the Lumbee Native Americans lived in the area in the early 1700s. European settlers began establishing church congregations in the area in the mid-to-late 1700s. The area was later placed under the jurisdiction of Cumberland and Robeson counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The community of Raeford was formed in the 1890s and incorporated in 1901. In 1899, the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad became the first rail line laid through the area.
In the early 1900s, some residents in the far reaches of Cumberland and Robeson began lobbying for the creation of a new county, complaining of long and dangerous travel to their county courthouses. In 1907 and 1909 there were unsuccessful efforts to lobby the state government led by State Senator J. W. McLauchlin to create a new "Glenn County" out of portions of Cumberland and Robeson. In 1911 a third attempt was made and conjoined with an effort to name a county in honor of Robert F. Hoke, a Confederate general in the American Civil War and railroad executive.
On February 14, 1911, the North Carolina General Assembly voted to create the new Hoke County effective April 1 of that year, with its first government to be appointed by the governor of North Carolina pending the holding of an election. Raeford was designated the county seat, and local officials served out of rented office space until a county courthouse was erected the following year. At the time of its creation, Hoke County comprised about 268,000 acres of land. It had no paved roads and its economy was rooted in agriculture. Its approximately 10,000 residents were mostly white descendants of Scottish Highlanders and African Americans.
About 400 Hoke County residents served in the U.S. Army during World War I. Between 1918 and 1923, the American federal government acquired 92,000 acres of land in the county as part of its efforts to expand Camp Bragg into Fort Bragg. leaving about 150,000 acres leftover. Over 160 Hoke residents served in the armed forces during World War II. After the war, the county's Lumbee population increased. An effort by the U.S. Army to acquire a further 49,000 acres in the county in 1952 for Fort Bragg was abandoned after intense lobbying by local residents. In 1958, Little River Township, a section of north Hoke which was cut off from the rest of the county due to the presence of the Fort Bragg Military Reservation, was moved into the jurisdiction of Moore County. Public schools, which had been originally racially segregated for whites, blacks, and Native Americans, were integrated in the 1960s.