Burgaw Historic District

Burgaw grew up beside the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, which built a depot in the settlement around 1850. When Pender County was created in 1875, the railroad donated land for a town if Burgaw Depot became the county seat. W. H. James, a railroad civil engineer, divided the seventy-three-acre site into blocks and lots with wide streets laid out north-south and east-west, and the town was incorporated in 1879. The district preserves the original central business district of brick commercial buildings from the first third of the twentieth century, along with a range of houses from late Queen Anne cottages to Craftsman bungalows. The courthouse square, with its 1914 Confederate Monument and mature live oaks, forms the town's civic center. The 1934 Georgian Revival courthouse, a Public Works Administration project, anchors the square.