World War II Production

World War II proved a boon to the county's economy. Local industries were converted to the production of war materiel, and workers flooded into downtown Sanford. Industries like the Sanford Furniture Company, located in the old buggy factory on Chatham Street, was converted to manufacture wooden bumpers for tugboats, and the Edwards Railway Motor Car Company, operated by the Rogers Diesel and Aeronautical Company shortly before the war, hired up to eight hundred employees to produce aircraft parts. Fort Bragg, which at its closest point was only eight miles from the county's southern border, provided an insatiable market for building supplies produced by the Isenhour brick plants, King Roofing, and others. Soldiers searching for entertainment and companionship found them at local downtown nightspots.

After wartime restrictions on construction activities were lifted locally in October 1946, the ensuing postwar economic boom created a home-building boom. Many of these new units were built in Downtown Sanford's mushrooming "Victory Villages." An early and representative subdivision is Circle Avenue, developed by William Brinn with Farmers Home Administration assistance. The virtually identical frame cottages that line the late 1940s cul-de-sac were built by general contractor Edward H. Wood.