Move to Kinston

Lenoir County is an ideal place to relocate your family and business. Our quality of life coupled with our climate, and location make it a small community in Eastern North Carolina that offers many of the amenities of much larger metropolitan communities. Our location provides us quick access to the coast and to the major ports of Morehead, Wilmington, and Norfolk.  We are only a short distance from East Carolina University and the University of Mount Olive.  We also have quick access to major Universities like UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina State, Duke, and UNC Wilmington.  Lenoir Community College located in our community offers a variety of degrees and programs of study that cover all age groups and industrial needs.

Our community has a thriving food and retail district with the nationally known Chef and the Farmer Restaurant and our local Kings Restaurant home of our famous Eastern North Carolina Barbeque. Our downtown district has many small eating venues, a great farmers market, Mother Earth Brewery and Tap Room and an expanding nightlife.  Our retail district has many boutiques, novelty stores, and is home to H. Stadiem one of our States’ great clothing stores that has called Kinston its’ home for over one hundred years.

Lenoir County’s art, history and recreation opportunities are outstanding and give our communities residents and visitors many options to enrich their lives.  Our Arts Council, Art District, and public display of art unveil the rich culture of our community while our recreation activities are endless. The history of our community can be seen in our museums, visitor center, battle ground sites, and through the numerous restored historical commercial and residential buildings that lace our community.

Come join us in this great place to live, work, and play.

History

Kinston was once known as Atkins Bank, which referred to a bluff just above the Neuse River once owned by Robert Atkins. Prior to the English settlement, the area was inhabited by the Neusiok Indians.

Kinston was created by an act of the North Carolina General Assembly in December of 1762 as Kingston, in honor of King George III who had just recently ascended to the throne. The bill to incorporate it was introduced by Richard Caswell, who made his home there and later served as the first Governor of the State of North Carolina from 1776 to 1780. Richard Caswell has become known as the Father of our State, so named because of his service to the state as a military leader and a statesman during such trying times during the Revolutionary War. It was during this period the town dropped the “g” from the name Kingston and it became known as Kinston.

During the onset of the Civil War, Camp Campbell and Camp Johnston were established near the city as training camps, and a bakery on Queen Street was converted to produce hardtack in large quantities. The Battle of Kinston took place in and around the city on December 14, 1862. The Battle of Wyse Fork (March 8, 1865) also occurred very near the city. It was at this later battle that the Confederate Ram Neuse was scuttled. Union forces occupied the city following the battle and remained through the Reconstruction period.

Despite the hardships of war and Reconstruction, the population of the city continued to grow. Kinston became a major tobacco and cotton trading center by the early twentieth century. More than five million pounds of tobacco were being sold in Kinston’s warehouses annually. The twentieth century saw a variety of industries come to Kinston including lumber mills, cotton mills, and even professional sports in the form of a minor league baseball team. Later growth would come in the form of a Du Pont plant for the manufacture of polyester fibers as well as pharmaceutical factories and a cluster of aviation and food production industries.

Leisure

We invite you to take time out of your hectic schedule and spend some time exploring our Civil War Battlefields and visiting the CSS Neuse and CSS Neuse II. Discover Harmony Hall, where North Carolina’s Government held office during the Revolutionary War. Capture the minds and hearts of your little ones as they visit the Neuseway Nature Center’s raccoons, osprey, red-tailed hawk turtles, alligators, and many other creatures native to Eastern North Carolina.  Catch a ride on Big Daddy’s Express and reach for the stars at the Neuseway Planetarium and Health & Science Museum. Just a few miles away you may hear the roar of dragsters competing at the Kinston Drag Strip, where racers from Connecticut to Florida compete for lucrative purses. The whack of a baseball in historic Grainger Stadium, home of the Down East Wood Ducks, a farm team of the Texas Rangers, offers a taste of the way the game was meant to be played. Kinston has long been a hub for the Cultural Arts and our Community Council for the Arts is definitely one of the finest arts centers in the state. Visitors can relax and enjoy the exhibits in the state-of-the-art center housed in a building listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. Southern cooking, fresh seafood, and Eastern North Carolina barbeque are features of Kinston restaurants and a variety of festivals and events provide year-round family fun!

Location

Lenoir County, NC is centrally located in eastern NC approximately 75 miles east of Raleigh (our state’s capital) and 75 miles west of Morehead City (one of our seaports and the beautiful crystal coast). Our county is a blend of agriculture and manufacturing. Lenoir County has three incorporated municipalities: Kinston is the county seat, LaGrange, lies approximately 10 miles west of Kinston and Pink Hill approximately 15 miles south of Kinston.

Major Roads

Relocation Resources

Moving to a new city requires a vast amount of information—details about neighborhoods and housing, automobile licenses, schools, cultural and recreational opportunities and much more. Whether relocating your family, a business or just yourself, let us help make the task of moving to Kinston and Lenoir County more enjoyable. We can provide you with more information on:

Schools • Banks/Mortgage Companies • Taxes • Retirement Information • Builders • Healthcare • Realtors

Community Links

Activities & Tourism Links