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Named
for historian and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh,
the City of Oaks was founded on 1,000 wooded
acres. Raleigh was selected as the site of a new state capital in 1788 and established in 1792 as both the new county seat and the new state
capital.
The site was chosen as being within ten miles of Isaac Hunter's
Tavern, which was apparently popular with the legislators of the time. No city or town
existed on the site before it was chosen to house the capital. Raleigh is one of
the few cities in the U.S. planned and built specifically to serve as a state
capital.
The North Carolina General Assembly
first met in Raleigh in December 1794, and
within one month, the legislature officially granted the city a charter, with a
board of seven appointed commissioners (starting in 1803, elected by the people)
and an "Intendant of Police" (what would later be called "Mayor") to govern
it. John Haywood was the first Intendant of
Police.
Despite being spared destruction in the Civil War, Raleigh grew very little from its
original 1792 size until the introduction of streetcar lines in the 1920's, the establishment of
the Research Triangle Park in the 1950's,
and a freeway known as the Beltline (I-440/US-1/US-64)
in the 1960's.
Raleigh
Memorial
Auditorium
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