Editing Richmond County, North Carolina (section)

=== Development ===
[[File:Hamlet, North Carolina in February 1912.jpg|thumb|[[Hamlet, North Carolina|Hamlet]] (pictured in 1912) developed as a railway town in the early 1900s.]]
At the turn of the century, Richmond County's economy revolved around agriculture and textile mills in Rockingham. In the early 1900s, [[Hamlet, North Carolina|Hamlet]] grew as a center for the [[Seaboard Air Line Railroad]], which had five lines cross through the town. The railway created numerous jobs and, in conjunction with the establishment of [[Blewett Falls Lake|Blewett Falls Dam]] and its hydroelectric power, facilitated the expansion of the textile industry.{{sfn|Massengill|Vallance|2005|p=7}} By the end of [[World War II]], Richmond County hosted ten textile mills which employed as many as 15,000 people.{{sfn|Simon|2020|p=32}} Through the 1940s, most of the independent mills were acquired by larger outside corporations and many began producing non-cotton fabrics, facilitating a local decline in cotton production.{{sfn|Sharpe|1953|p=23}} Seaboard established an $11 million [[classification yard]], the first one in the [[Southeastern United States]], about one mile north of Hamlet in 1954.{{sfn|Simon|2020|p=18}}<ref>{{cite news| title = Classification Freight Yard of Seaboard Opens| newspaper = The Pilot| page = 24| date = December 3, 1954| url = https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073968/1954-12-03/ed-1/seq-24/}}</ref> In 1968 the county, Rockingham, and Hamlet school systems merged.<ref name= Ruffin/>