North Carolina Highway 10

Fig. 2 Part of the Central Highway between Durham and Hillsboro.jpg, from "Highway work in North Carolina : containing a statistical report of road work during 1911" (1912), Economic Paper No. 27 of the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey, by Joseph Hyde Pratt, State Geologist

• 1911: North Carolina state legislation brings the Central Highway project into being. The Central Highway was a conceived plan for a continuous highway that stretched from the westernmost portions of North Carolina to the coast.[2][3]
• Late 1910s: The second and third State Highway Commissions surveyed a route for NC 10, which was the number designated for the Central Highway. Existing roads were linked with new roads to form the east–west route.
• 1924: About one-half of the Central Highway was paved at this point; the rest remained as clay or gravel roads.
• 1926: Nearly all of NC 10 was paved. Also, many citizens of Newton, who were upset that the Central Highway was not routed through their city, took the State Highway Commission to court. The case was finally decided in the North Carolina Supreme Court, which ruled that NC 10 must pass by the Newton courthouse. The already constructed NC 10 bypassing Newton was given the designation NC 110, and most travelers took this bypass anyway.
• 1927: U.S. Highways arrived in North Carolina; US 70 and US 19 shared much of NC 10's routing.
• 1929: Both NC 10 and NC 110 were completely paved.
• 1930: NC 110 was renamed NC 10A
• 1933: North Carolina eliminated most state highways that coincided with U.S. highways. Most of NC 10 is truncated.
• 1932: US 70 moved from NC 10's former routing to NC 10A, replacing it completely in the Newton area. NC 10 reoccupied its routing east of Newton.
• 1938: NC 10 is extended west to terminate at NC 18.
• 1940: NC 10 is extended west again to end at its current western terminus in Polkville.
• Mid 1990s: NC 10's eastern terminus is extended about one mile (1.6 km) north from US 70 to I-40.

Part of an early routing of NC 10 is still visible in Orange county. Just east of Mebane, previous NC 10 ran parallel to current I-40/85, just a mile south of the highway. At Efland, the road crossed the interstate and ran parallel route just north of the current interstate on Ben Johnson Road. The road followed the Eno River to Hillsborough and turned left on King St. (no longer an intersection). The route turned right onto Churton St. (NC 86), and turned eastward after crossing the interstate and followed the railroad to a junction to US 70 at the Durham County Line. Another fragment of NC-10 starts south of Hillsborough and I-85 from NC-86. It runs east for several miles to US 70 and NC 751.

There is a two-block section of NC 10 in Buncombe County, in Black Mountain. The segment runs north of and parallel to E. State Street (between Black Mountain and Ridgecrest) and I-40. In a residential neighborhood, the street is named "Old State Ten Road."

There are two short remnants of NC 10 along US 74 in Swain County, in Bryson City near the Wesser community. The roads are named "Old 10" and "Old Route 10" respectively. Each segment is about 650 feet (200 m) in length.[4][5]

• North Carolina Bicycle Route 6

• Media related to North Carolina Highway 10 at Wikimedia Commons
• Filpus Roadgeek - Historic NC 10
• NCRoads.com: N.C. 10
• NCRoads.com: N.C. 10-A
• The Central Highway and early State Highway 10 (NC 10) through Orange County