Warren County, North Carolina: History
The county was established in 1779 from the northern half of Bute County. It was named for Joseph Warren of Massachusetts, a physician and general in the American Revolutionary War who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The county seat was designated at Warrenton later that year. In 1786, part of Granville County was moved to Warren. Developed as a tobacco and cotton farming area, Warrenton became a center of commerce and was one of the wealthiest towns in the state from 1840 to 1860. Many planters built fine homes there. Along with its slave population, Warren had one of the largest free black populations in antebellum North Carolina.
The county's economy declined after the American Civil War, though its large black population briefly exercised significant political influence during the Reconstruction era. Warren's economy, like those of its neighboring counties in northeastern North Carolina, continued to struggle until it gained some manufacturing businesses in the 20th century. In 1881, parts of Warren County, Franklin County and Granville County were combined to form Vance County.
The 1970s recession in the United States severely impacted Warren County. By 1980, it was one of the poorest counties in the state, with unemployment peaking in 1982 at 13.3 percent. The county pushed for industrial development to ameliorate struggles in the agricultural sector without much success.
From 1990 to 2016, manufacturing employment rates declined by about two-thirds. Since the late 20th century, county residents have worked to attract other industrial and business development. Soul City, a "planned community" development, was funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It has not been successful in attracting business and industry, and has not developed as much housing as intended.
In 1978, a transformer manufacturer contracted a trucking company to illegally dump polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) alongside roads in North Carolina. The state of North Carolina assumed responsibility for cleaning up the pollution, and in December 1978, the state government purchased land in the Warren County community of Afton to establish a landfill to dispose of the chemical waste. Local residents began organizing to protest the planned disposal site, arguing better disposal options existed and that a hazardous waste facility would undercut the county's ability to attracted new industry. National civil rights organizations and politicians became involved, and about 500 protestors were arrested in September 1982 for attempting to obstruct the construction of the disposal site. While the demonstrations did not halt the creation of the landfill, the site was eventually detoxified, and a significant amount of historiographic literature attributes the start of the modern environmental justice movement to the protests.