Jennifer Smart

Wake Forest Jennifer Smart

Wake Forest Township got its start in 1834 when Calvin Jones sold his farmland to the North Carolina Baptist State Convention. The college began as a place for local boys to trade manual labor for a religious education. But the campus soon grew and so did the community, "surpassing any other neighborhood in refinement, good society, and wealth," according to one 19th-century account. By 1909, the town was incorporated. Not long after, with transformers trucked in from Raleigh, residents could read newspaper headlines touting Wake Forest's fame in sports, academics, and medicine by the glow of the town's new electric lights. For a time, the town and college seemed inseparable. But by 1956, the school had moved to Winston-Salem, dealing a devastating blow to local residents. For many years afterward, they waited for the world to rediscover Wake Forest. It seems that day has come.