Page 22 - Robeson Living Fall 2021

Parkton enacted legislation, sponsored by Representative Hamilton Mc-
Parkton was settled about 1884 and named Piney Forest. A Millan of Robeson County, creating the Croatan Normal School.
one-room schoolhouse, Piney Forest Academy, was renamed The normal school was founded to train Native American as
Parkton Institute in 1891. The name Parkton may originate public-school teachers. For many years, the instruction was at
from the name of a railroad engineer who mapped the area ad- the elementary and secondary level, and the first diploma was
jacent to the first tracks. Another theory is that the town was awarded in 1905. After several name changes over the years,
named for the nearby parking area used by the railroad travel- the last being on July 1, 1996, when Pembroke State University
ers. The depot, originally on the west side of the tracks, has was changed to the University of North Carolina at Pembroke,
been preserved by the Parkton Historical Society, through an to denote the connection it has as a member of the University of
arrangement with the Atlantic Coastline Railroad. Ten daily North Carolina system.
trains stopped in Parkton in the years preceding the use of
the automobile for mass transportation. Incorporated in 1901,
Parkton boasted only one general store at that time, McMillan
and Hughes.

Pembroke
The area around Pembroke was often referred to as Scuffle-
town, but when incorporated in 1895 it was named for Pem-
broke Jones, a Wilmington millionaire and stockholder of the
railroad that ran through the town. The town and surrounding
area are home to the Lumbee Tribe, the largest tribe east of the
Mississippi River and the ninth largest in the nation. Native
Americans that have received recognition outside of the local
area include Helen Maynor Scheirbeck, Scheirbeck assisted in
the founding of the American Indian Higher Education Con-
sortium. She was appointed head of the Indian Head Start Pro- Flora MacDonald College in Red Springs
gram in 1991. From 1987 to 1995, she served on the Board of
Trustees of the National Museum of the American Indian, key Red Springs
to its founding. After her term as a trustee ended, she became Red Springs was incorporated in 1887 drawing its name from
director of the museum’s public programs. In the sports world the red pigment of the local mineral springs. The springs’s me-
there are Kelvin Sampson of the Indian Hoosiers, Chris Cha- dicinal properties had drawn crowds for over thirty-five years.
vis of WWW and Sean Locklear of the NFL. The area was settled heavily by Scottish Highlanders with the
town being on the 1775 Land Grant from King George III to
On March 7, 1887, the General Assembly of North Carolina Sailor Hector MacNeill.

Pembroke State College later the
University to North Carolina at
Pembroke

Page 21 Page 22 Robeson Living ~ Fall 2021