A Minor Mystery: The Case Of The Missing "S"

A reader pointed out a road sign for an Eastern North Carolina town that seems to be missing a letter. We found the truth. It's not a particularly deep truth, but we found it anyway.

Here’s an unintentionally funny screengrab:

Screengrab from visitsampsonnc.com on April 25, 2024

In case you didn’t catch it, the Sampson County Convention & Visitors Bureau lists some information for the Town of Harrells. But the image next to that information shows signs for “Harrell.” This is confusing! Is there one Harrell or are there many Harrells? Is Harrells supposed to be possessive, but missing an apostrophe? Why is your inner English teacher so upset right now?

People send me mysteries all the time. This particular one was brought to my attention by Rabbit Hole reader Matthew Vincent, who once traveled the length of this state on U.S. Highway 64, and is now on a similar road trip on Highway 421. He asked:

I have a NC rabbit hole mystery! Is it Harrell or Harrells? Plural or singular lol — I think maybe because it straddles two counties? On the map it’s plural but the signs are singular. Maybe you covered that one already?

I have not covered that one already! Luckily, though, this particular rabbit hole was not very deep.

The Story Of Some Dude Named Harrell

First up, I looked into the history. Micki Cottle, a former newspaper columnist and historian, wrote up the story of William Harrell (not Harrells). She described him as “so lean as to appear cadaverous.” When he arrived in Sampson County in the mid 1800s, he looked at all of the farms nearby and saw an opportunity to open a store. Which he did. The area ended up being shown on maps as “Harrell’s Store.”

Harrell himself left Eastern North Carolina in the late 1860s, and basically became the last Harrell in the area. Cottle mentions that Harrell’s great-great grandson came through town years ago asking about his ancestor, but discovered that the family name doesn’t show up in any local cemeteries.

The Census kept referring to the area as Harrell’s Store for decades, all the way until 1954, when the Town of Harrells was incorporated. Hence, the town name isn’t plural, it’s possessive. It’s just missing its former apostrophe. (Fun fact! Only two of North Carolina’s 552 municipalities contain apostrophes in their names: Cajah’s Mountain and Wilson’s Mills, which were incorporated in 1983 and 1996, respectively. Proper punctuation is BACK.)

Anyway, there’s a clear lesson here: If you’d like to have a town named after you, open up a rural store in the mid 1800s with nothing else nearby.

Today, Harrells is home to less than 200 people. And, it consistently refers to itself as “Harrells.” In fact, I went back through the archives on Google Street View, and discovered that every sign at the city limits refers to Harrells, not Harrell. That’s been the case since at least 2007.

A sign on Highway 41, east of Harrells.

And yet, there’s clearly a real picture of two real signs for “Harrell.” In fact, it was the first picture that comes up for “Harrells, NC” on Google Image Search. So, what’s the deal?

Spoiler Alert: Other States Exist And They Also Have Towns In Them

The deal is this: Those signs are not in North Carolina. One giveaway: City limits signs in this state generally don’t list the population. But! That is the case in Arkansas, where this particular image was taken.

Yes, there is a Harrell, Arkansas. Singular. That town got its name in 1908 from Martha Wood Harrell, who ran a boarding house for railroad workers nearby. She doesn’t seem to be related to William Harrell. A Google Reverse Image Search shows that the picture of “Harrell” on Sampson County’s tourism site came from the Arkansas town’s Facebook page. Case closed.

If you read this far and feel a little disappointed, well, um, sorry. Look at it this way: Not all mysteries are solvable! This one was! (I’ll be sending this one off when I try to nab a Pulitzer Prize for Service Journalism). Also: If you didn’t know there was a tiny town in Eastern North Carolina named Harells, now you do! You also now know that Harrells is home to a large Christian academy, and its city limits are a perfect circle with a 1 mile radius, which is sort of a Southern thing. Forgot to mention that stuff earlier. Anyhow, it’s the journey, people.

For what it’s worth, I let the Sampson County folks know about this (they blamed a former intern), and it’s since been corrected. But the lesson remains, be careful when you’re out there hitting Control-C, Control-V on the open internet. Not all Harrells are the same.