Wallace, North Carolina

Wallace is a small railroad town in Duplin County that has gone by several names. The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad came through here in eighteen forty, creating a commercial corridor through the county's longleaf pine forests, and by eighteen seventy an entrepreneur named Gabriel Boney had set up a cotton gin, turpentine distillery, and general store at the depot. The settlement was incorporated as Duplin Roads in eighteen seventy-three, then renamed Wallace in eighteen ninety-nine to honor Stephen D.

Wallace, an official of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which had absorbed the original Wilmington and Weldon line. Today Wallace anchors the Cape Fear wine region, sitting at the heart of the Duplin Winery territory, which produces muscadine wine from the native grape that has grown in these coastal-plain soils since long before any railroad arrived.