Magnolia, NC

Magnolia is a Duplin County town built along the Wilmington-Weldon Railroad corridor and U.S. 117, seven miles south of Warsaw and eleven miles north of Wallace. It began as Stricklandsville, incorporated in 1855 around the Strickland Depot, and took the Magnolia name in 1857, reportedly honoring Maggie Monk. A graded school was chartered there in 1883, and the town later became known for shipping flower bulbs—cannas, tuberoses, and caladiums—to markets across the United States and overseas.

The railroad remains visible in the town’s street pattern, while the John F. Croom home and nearby Roger Dickson Farm keep the older agricultural landscape close at hand. The Croom house began as a school in the 1850s, served as a Civil War-era troop quarters, and later held bulbs on its ground floor. Magnolia’s current municipal departments, schools, and highway connections serve a population of 831 counted in 2020. Poultry, hog farming, and the old bulb trade place the town within Duplin County’s working landscape, while the historic houses give its center a longer memory.