Star: From Hunsucker's Store to a Railroad Town

Long before there was a town here, there was a trading post. A man named Martin Hunsucker operated a general store at this crossroads in the Uwharrie foothills of Montgomery County, and the community that grew around it took the informal name Hunsucker's Store. After the Civil War, a merchant named Angus Leach arrived and began building up the settlement, serving as postmaster, hotel keeper, and general-store owner.

When the Aberdeen and West End Railroad completed a branch line here in eighteen ninety-five, the community had enough commerce to seek formal incorporation. It was incorporated in eighteen ninety-seven as the town of Star, taking a new name that moved it away from its trading-post identity. A second railroad, the Asheboro and Montgomery, arrived in eighteen ninety-six and made Star a small but active shipping point for the area's lumber, turpentine, and brick industries.

Today the town remains a small community in the Uwharrie country, population roughly eight hundred.