Qualla: Columbus County, North Carolina

Columbus County, North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0. Columbus County is going the other way. While the rest of coastal North Carolina booms, Columbus shed 7,475 residents between 2010 and 2020, a 12.9 percent decline. The U.S. Census Bureau recorded population drops in 12 of 14 reported communities. Census experts expect more of the same through 2030. Whiteville, the county seat, is still the largest municipality. Almost ninety percent of residents live in rural areas. This is the part of the Cape Fear region that the Wilmington-bound retirees fly over.

Image: DiscoA340 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Columbus County, North Carolina: Carved Out for Convenience

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0. The General Assembly created Columbus County on December 15, 1808, mostly so locals would not have to ride all the way to the Brunswick County seat to file paperwork. They formed it from parts of Bladen and Brunswick and named it for Christopher Columbus. In 1810, surveyors platt...

Image: DiscoA340 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Columbus County, North Carolina: Strawberries, Tobacco, and the Long Decline

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unknown, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain. The Wilmington, Columbia and Augusta Railroad arrived in the 1860s and changed everything. Naval stores and lumber surged, then corn and cotton dominated the postwar economy. In 1895, growers introduced strawberries at Chadbourn. By 1907, Chadbourn was one of the leading strawber...

Image: unknown, U.S. Department of Agriculture | Public domain

Columbus County, North Carolina: The Klan, the Editor, and the Sting

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Indy beetle, CC0. In 1950, Thomas Hamilton, a South Carolina Klan leader, started recruiting in Chadbourn, Fair Bluff, Tabor City, and Whiteville. They paraded through Tabor City with handbills. W. Horace Carter, publisher of the Tabor City Tribune, ran an editorial the next day calling the Klan a...

Image: Indy beetle | CC0

Columbus County, North Carolina: Green Swamp and the Waccamaw Siouan

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz. If this image is used, please also leave a note at Wikipedia here. Thank you!, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Green Swamp Preserve sprawls across Columbus and into Brunswick County, one of the last great pocosin wetlands on the Atlantic coastal plain. Carnivorous plants grow here: Venus flytraps, pitcher plants, sundews, all native to a narrow band of the Carolinas. The Waccamaw Siou...

Image: CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz. If this image is used, please also leave a note at Wikipedia here. Thank you! | CC BY-SA 4.0

Columbus County, North Carolina: What Stays

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit formulanone from Huntsville, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The hospital ranking is grim: Columbus County placed 91st of 100 in the 2022 County Health Rankings, an improvement after years at the bottom. The county led North Carolina in opioid pills per person from 2006 to 2012, averaging 113.5 pills per person per year. International Pape...

Image: formulanone from Huntsville, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0