1. Fayetteville, North Carolina is one of thirteen Fayettevilles in the United States. It also has the highest city population, while Fayetteville, Arkansas has the highest metro population.
2. Fayetteville, North Carolina is also the only Fayetteville that namesake Marquis de Lafayette ever actually visited. The French aristocrat and American Revolutionary War hero visited the city on a grand tour of the United States in 1824.
3. The Golden Corral buffet chain originated in Fayetteville. When it opened in 1973 it was known as “Golden Corral Family Steak House.”
4. Until 2007, in North Carolina, and by extension Fayetteville, possession of a lottery ticket was punishable by a $2,000 fine.
5. It’s still illegal to hold more than two bingo sessions a week or hold a single bingo session longer than five hours.
6. The Fayetteville Observer’s office was one of many casualties of General Sherman’s destructive march through the Confederate South. Sherman targeted the newspaper due to the editors strong support for the Confederate cause.
7. Jack McKeon, 2003 World Series Champion and Manager of the Year, had his first head coaching gig in Fayetteville with the now-defunct Fayetteville Highlanders all the way back in 1955.
8. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Fayetteville was −5 °F in January of 1985.
9. Putt-Putt-style miniature golf (featuring a focus on skills, not windmills, and other frills) originated in Fayetteville in 1954.
10. In 2011, The Daily Beast named Fayetteville the “#1 Best City for Recent Grads” due to its low cost of living and relatively high per capita income.
11. Fayetteville State University has gone through more than its fair share of name changes since being founded in 1867. Former names include:
- Howard School
- State Colored Normal School
- Fayetteville State Teachers College
- Fayetteville State College
12. WWF professional wrestler Sylvester Ritter, better known as “Junkyard Dog,” played football at Fayetteville State University, where he was a two-time All-American.
13. Since 2006, Fayetteville has been home to the Rogue Rollergirls, an all-female roller derby league and non-profit.
14. The Fayetteville area was once a major wine producer: during the 1880s the 60-acre Tokay Vineyard was thought to be “the largest single vineyard this side of the Rocky Mountains.”
15. The Fayetteville Observer is the oldest newspaper in the state, having been founded way back in 1816.
16. Babe Ruth hit his first ever professional home run at Cape Fear Fair Grounds in Fayetteville in 1914. Ruth was 19 year-old rookie for the Baltimore Orioles, and the ball travelled an estimated 350 feet.
17. Babe’s bat boy that day was Maurice Fleishman, who went on to be Fayetteville’s county commissioner
18. Babe’s trip to Fayetteville was the first train ride he had ever taken, and he had his first elevator ride while in town.
19. Methodist University’s Women’s Golf team is one of the most successful college sports teams in America, having won 15 consecutive Division III Championships between 1998 and 2012 and 16 of 19 of all titles since the Championship was introduced in 1996.
20. The 1991 gangster film “Billy Bathgate” starring Dustin Hoffman, Bruce Willis, and Nicole Kidman was partially filmed in Fayetteville.
21. Professional baseball-player-turned doctor Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, portrayed in the film “Field of Dreams,” was born and raised in Fayetteville.
22. If you love jam bands and classic rock, you’ve almost certainly heard the work of guitarist Jimmy Herring: the Fayetteville native has played with Widespread Panic, Derek Trucks Band, the Allman Brothers, and the Dead.
23. The United States’ Department of Defense is far and away the largest employer of Fayetteville residents with over 15,500 employees. Almost all of them work at nearby Fort Bragg.
24. Humans have lived in what’s now the greater Fayetteville area for at least 12,000 years.
25. The United States Constitution was ratified by the North Carolina Constitutional Convention in Fayetteville in 1789.
26. During the 19th century, Fayetteville was home to five different “plank roads”—wooden roads used for trade that were particularly popular in North Carolina. The longest plank road in the state was between Fayetteville and Salem, stretching 129 miles.
27. Fayetteville was the setting for one of the oddest celebrity photos of all-time when President Ronald Reagan, “Growing Pains” actor Kirk Cameron, “Webster” star Emmanuel Lewis, an elderly Lucille Ball, and comedian Phyllis Diller were all caught in a snap together at Pope Air Force Base for a Bob Hope event.
28. In 2008, Time Magazine named Fayetteville “America’s Most Pro-Military Town” after this city branded itself as the “World’s First Sanctuary for Soldiers and Their Families.”
29. In 2014, a graduate of Fayetteville’s Jack Britt High School was denied a diploma after stripping off his graduation robe and down to a pair of leopard-print undepants.
30. Since 2012 Fayetteville native and hip hop star J.Cole has hosted an annual Dreamville Weekend around Fayetteville, where he visits high schools, performs, and hosts a dinner recognizing local leaders.
31. The first European inhabitant of what’s now Fayetteville was John Newberry. He opened a tavern in the area and began selling lots to other settlers in 1754.
32. Fayetteville native Ann Bilansky became the first and only woman ever to receive the death penalty in Minnesota after poisoning her husband in 1859.
33. Four-time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore was born in the Fayetteville area.
34. In Fayetteville, as in all of North Carolina, it’s illegal to be a professional fortune teller, but if someone wants to practice as an amateur, it has be at a school or church.
35. Methodist College is one of just 14 schools in the country with a PGA-sanctioned major in Professional Golf Management.
36. NFL linebacker and Fayetteville native Joe Harris played in Super Bowl XIV as a member of the Los Angeles Rams.
37. After the American Revolution, Fayetteville lost a bid to become the state capital to Raleigh by a single vote.
38. Prolific North Carolinian artist Elliott Daingerfield, famous for his landscape paintings, was raised in Fayetteville before moving New York at age 21 to pursue his art career.
39. Methodist University’s men’s baseball coach Tom Austin is the third winningest coach in Division III baseball history, having racked up over 1,000 wins in his decades-long career.
40. In 2014, Wallet Hub named Fayetteville America’s second best city to start a business due to its start-up incentive program and high-quality worker pool.
41. In 1775, fifty residents of the Fayetteville area signed what is now known as the Liberty Point Resolves: a document that protested the actions of Great Britain in the colonies, and vowed that the signers would "go forth and be ready to sacrifice our lives and fortunes to secure her freedom and safety."
The document predated the Declaration of Independence by a year.
42. Professional golfers Raymond and Marlene Floyd, who were born in Fort Bragg, grew up playing on courses in Fayetteville. Raymond won four major PGA titles in his career while Marlene won the 1988 Carolina Women’s Open.
43. Charles Chesnutt, one of the early leaders at Fayetteville State University, was also a successful novelist. His first and perhaps most famous novel, “The House Behind the Cedars,” was set in Fayetteville.
44. In 1831, a massive fire in Fayetteville destroyed roughly 600 buildings in the city.
45. The Fayetteville area is home to a whopping nine designated Historic Districts.
46. Fayetteville’s locally beloved CAMEO Art House Theatre, originally known as the New Dixie, has been screening films since 1908.
47. Earlier this year, Golfadvisor.com called Fayetteville an under-rated “golf destination.” There are more than twenty golf courses total in the Fayetteville area, including Cypress Lakes Golf Course, which was converted from a turkey farm to a public course in 1968.
48. Fayetteville’s Cape Fear River Trail is part of the East Coast Greenway, a project aimed at linking green urban paths from Maine to the Florida Keys. As of 2013, the East Coast Greenway was roughly one-third complete.
49. Pulitzer-Prize nominated war photographer Chris Hondros went to Terry Sanford High School in Fayetteville.
50. Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who attended high school in Fayetteville, is one of just two current NFL owners that has owned a team for its entire history.
Featured image source: Flickr user vidmon
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