The New Hope Valley is located in the heart of

The Triangle (North Carolina) The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, are both common nicknames for a metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh and Durham and the town of Chapel Hill, home to th ...

. The valley has been the site of a broad range of cultures for more than 10,000 years. Archaeologists have explored the remains of 450 prehistoric and historic sites in the area and have uncovered many Native American artifacts. The area was first explored by Europeans in 1701, and by 1810 a network of farms dotted the valley linked to Pittsboro, North Carolina, the county seat. The land was settled by Scottish Highlanders in the 1740s, and it saw action in both the Revolutionary and Civil wars. It became a logging center in the early 1900s as railroads such as the

New Hope Valley Railway The New Hope Valley Railway is a heritage railroad in Bonsal, North Carolina operated by the North Carolina Railway Museum, Inc., an all-volunteer, nonprofit, and tax exempt educational and historical organization. The railroad consists of a tot ...

pushed through the area. Following a disastrous hurricane which struck the

Cape Fear River The Cape Fear River is a long blackwater river in east central North Carolina. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river is formed at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River (North Carol ...

Basin in 1945, Congress directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to undertake a comprehensive study of water resource needs in the area. The project, then known as New Hope Lake, was authorized in 1963, and construction began in 1967. In 1973, the name of the project was changed to B. Everett Jordan Lake in honor of the former senator from North Carolina.

See also