Gibsonville Garden Railroad company shops

 In 1849 the North Carolina Railroad Company (NCRR) was authorized to build a railroad from Charlotte to Goldsboro.  By August 1853 they needed to construct repair shops at the railway midpoint which was in Alamance County. The railroad’s first choice was in Glen Raven, but no one would sell their land. The next choice was Graham, but they also did not want the dirty/noisy repair and maintenance shops built to disturb their quiet town and county courthouse. 

Finally, in May 1854 the NCRR bought 632 acres of land two miles west of Graham though they only needed 30 acres for the workshops. The extra land was used to control both development and the living conditions for their workers.

Company Shops was the name given to the community. In an attempt to promote the sale of town lots, the directors of the railroad changed the village's name to "Vance" for a period between 1863 and 1864, but in July 1864 they voted to resume calling it Company Shops. Initially Company Shops consisted of seven brick buildings and eleven brick houses. The town continued to grow and by1857 Company Shops consisted of 27 building. It became an incorporated village in 1866 with rules against drink, women and gambling. 

When the NCRR moved the maintenance and repair shops to Manchester, Virginia in 1886, the people of Company Shops decided to stay. The town had grown beyond just being a railroad repair shop, since there were two cotton mills, and also a prosperous coffin factory for employment. The townspeople decided in Feb 1887 that they needed a new town name as the railroad had left them. A committee was formed to pick a new name and several options were considered such as Carolinadelphia and Holtsville. It is not known how the committee decided on the name Burlington, but the municipal charter was changed to Burlington in 1887.