Gallery · Maxton Recreation Commission

Around Town

Maxton today

The town the Recreation Commission serves. Every photograph on this page can be swiped, and clicked to fill the screen. The archive sets follow underneath — postcards, the 1938 Farm Security Administration series, the air base and the fire insurance maps.

**Beacham Park** The Commission's home ground on West Carolina Street, and the site of the Collard Festival each November.Contributed photograph.

**Beacham Park grounds**Contributed photograph.

**Beacham Park, looking across the field**Contributed photograph.

**Hayes Pond, Shoe Heel Creek** The site of the January 1958 confrontation in which hundreds of Lumbee people routed a Ku Klux Klan rally.Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

**The Patterson Building** Main and Patterson Streets. Built for the Bank of Robeson around 1910, Town Hall since 1997.Indy beetle, CC0

**Main Street** The commercial heart of the historic district.Indy beetle, CC0

**Shopfronts downtown** Turn-of-the-century storefronts on the historic block. The units at this end stand empty; the barber shop on the same row is still open and trading.Indy beetle, CC0

**Maxton Historic District** Twenty-one acres listed on the National Register since 1999.Indy beetle, CC0

**Old Maxton Supply Hardware** One of the forty-nine contributing buildings. A thrift store occupies it today.Indy beetle, CC0

**Maxton Train Station** The railroad junction the town grew up around.Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Maxton Through the Years

A century of photographs

Maxton was chartered in 1874 at a railroad crossing once called Shoe Heel. What follows is the town as outsiders and residents photographed it — on postcards sold in local drug stores, and by a government photographer who came through during the Depression.

**Maxton, 1915** The town as it stood the year this view was taken.Public domain.

**Maxton, 1915 — second view**Public domain.

**Intersection of Main and Patterson Streets** The Bank of Robeson with its original dome and finial — noticeably steeper than the white dome there today. Photographed by J. E. Spencer; issued by Robeson Drug Co.Period postcard, published before 1929. Public domain.

**Maple Shade Inn** A two-storey verandah hotel, long since gone from the town.Period postcard, published before 1929. Public domain.

**Graham Street** Showing the Presbyterian Church and the McKennon residence.Hand-coloured postcard, published before 1929. Public domain.

The Bank of Maxton building — **The Bank of Maxton** A separate institution from the Bank of Robeson at Main and Patterson — the town supported both.State Archives of North Carolina. Public domain.

**Maxton Presbyterian Church**Presbyterian Historical Society. Public domain.

**Maxton High School** The school building on a period postcard.State Archives of North Carolina, Massengill Postcard Collection (PhC.184). No known copyright restrictions.

Near Maxton · Pembroke Farms, 1938

The Farm Security Administration photographs

In 1938 the federal government established Pembroke Farms, a New Deal resettlement community for Lumbee families near Maxton. The Farm Security Administration sent Marion Post Wolcott — one of the era's major documentary photographers — to record it. These are her photographs.

About the captions. These images are held by the Library of Congress under their original 1938 catalogue titles, which use racial language of that period that we do not repeat here. The captions below were written by the Commission to describe what each photograph shows. The original records, with their historic titles intact, remain publicly searchable at loc.gov — we have changed nothing about the images themselves. The people pictured were not named by the photographer; if you recognise a relative, we would be glad to hear from you.

**Rendering lard after hog-killing, near Maxton**Marion Post Wolcott, 1938. Farm Security Administration — Library of Congress. Public domain.

**Lumbee children near Maxton**Marion Post Wolcott, 1938. Farm Security Administration — Library of Congress. Public domain.

**A Lumbee family near Pembroke Farms**Marion Post Wolcott, 1938. Farm Security Administration — Library of Congress. Public domain.

**A woman preparing chitlins after hog-killing, near Maxton**Marion Post Wolcott, 1938. Farm Security Administration — Library of Congress. Public domain.

**A Lumbee family on their front porch, Pembroke Farms**Marion Post Wolcott, 1938. Farm Security Administration — Library of Congress. Public domain.

**The home of a Lumbee family not yet resettled at Pembroke Farms**Marion Post Wolcott, 1938. Farm Security Administration — Library of Congress. Public domain.

1942–1945

The Laurinburg–Maxton Army Air Base

During the Second World War the largest glider training base in the world was built on Maxton's doorstep. Troop-carrying CG-4 gliders were towed aloft by C-47s, cut loose, and landed in fields with jeeps and artillery inside them — the same technique used at Normandy. Thousands of airborne troops trained here. The Maxton Museum on Graham Street holds special collections on the base.

**The base, on a period postcard**U.S. Army. Public domain.

**The airfield, 26 February 1944**U.S. Army. Public domain.

**A C-47 towing a CG-4 glider** The glider carried troops or a jeep and had no engine of its own.U.S. Army. Public domain.

**A CG-4 glider landing**U.S. Army. Public domain.

**A jeep driven out through the nose of a CG-4** The whole front of the glider hinged upward to unload.U.S. Army. Public domain.

The Town on Paper

Maxton, mapped building by building

Before aerial photography, insurance companies sent surveyors to draw every structure in a town — its footprint, how many storeys, whether it was brick or frame, and what it was used for. The Sanborn maps are the closest thing we have to a photograph of the whole of Maxton, and they name streets and buildings that are long gone.

Sanborn fire insurance map of Maxton, North Carolina — **Sanborn map of Maxton — sheet 1** Every building drawn to scale, colour-coded by construction.Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress. Public domain.