Qualla: Laurinburg, North Carolina

Laurinburg, North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Indy beetle, CC0. In 1933, a fifteen-year-old from Cheraw, South Carolina, named John Birks Gillespie crossed the state line on a scholarship to a small boarding school in Laurinburg, North Carolina. The Laurinburg Institute had been founded in 1904 by Emmanuel and Tinny McDuffie, who had come from Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama at Booker T. Washington's direction to build a school for Black students in the rural Carolinas. By the time Dizzy arrived, the Institute was already legendary. He stayed two years, played in the school band, and learned the trumpet seriously for the first time. Decades later, he returned often, and the Institute's musical reputation grew partly because of him.

Image: Indy beetle | CC0

Laurinburg, North Carolina: Named for the McLaurins

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Settlers arrived at the present town site around 1785. The settlement was named for a prominent local family — the McLaurins — and originally spelled Laurinburgh, pronounced 'Laurinboro,' the way Edinburgh is pronounced in Scotland. The town was within Richmond County's jurisdict...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Laurinburg, North Carolina: The Laurinburg Institute

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nyttend, Public domain. Among the historic sites listed on the National Register, the Laurinburg Institute stands out as more than architecture. Founded in 1904, it was — and remains — a historically Black boarding school that has served generations of Southern Black families when public education for t...

Image: Nyttend | Public domain

Laurinburg, North Carolina: Historic Sites and Houses

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Corydjhughes, Public domain. Laurinburg's National Register listings document the layers of its 19th- and early 20th-century streetscape: the John Blue House, the Mag Blue House, the Central School, the Dr. Evan Alexander Erwin House, the E. Hervey Evans House, the Thomas J. Gill House, the Stewart-Hawley-Ma...

Image: Corydjhughes | Public domain

Laurinburg, North Carolina: A Sister in Argyll

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0. Laurinburg has one sister city, designated through Sister Cities International: Oban, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The pairing makes a kind of geographic poetry. The McLaurins for whom Laurinburg was named came from Argyll. So did many of the early settlers across this part of N...

Image: DiscoA340 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Laurinburg, North Carolina: Who Came Out of Here

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gerry Dincher from Hope Mills, NC, CC BY-SA 2.0. The list of people Laurinburg has sent into American life is improbable for a town of fewer than 15,000. Terry Sanford, the former governor of North Carolina and U.S. Senator who founded Duke's public policy school, was from here. So was U.S. Senator and Connecticut Governor Jose...

Image: Gerry Dincher from Hope Mills, NC | CC BY-SA 2.0