It’s one of the fastest-growing cities in the Triangle and the country, but Cary started as a small community with a strict founder.
Cary isn’t actually named after its founder Frank Page, who was a stern, religious family man who hated drinking hated gambling – He named Cary after a prominent temperance advocate, Samuel Fenton Cary because he wanted Cary to be a dry town when it was founded in 1871.
That didn’t happen, and as it turns out, the straight-laced founder of the town may have had more to his story, and one local historian says she was shocked by what she found.
Katherine Loflin is a historian who runs the visitor’s center in downtown Cary on Chatham Street. Inside, you’ll find all kinds of photos and even T-shirts about Frank Page.
But while his story as a successful entrepreneur from a prominent family is well known, less is known about his tumultuous later years.
After Frank’s wife of almost 50 years died, Frank developed a little bit of a wild side at age 74.
“He started to be a little more mysterious in his doings,” Loflin says.