Whitakers, NC

Whitakers is a town split between Edgecombe and Nash Counties in eastern North Carolina, with the county line running along the railroad tracks. That odd division is the first thing to know about the place: the town is one community, but its map is literally divided by the rail corridor. Whitakers sits in the Rocky Mount metropolitan area and has a 27891 postal address; the 2020 census counted 627 residents. The tracks and roads do more to orient the town than any single county label.

The historic Porter Houses and Armstrong Kitchen, near town on Wells Road, puts an older rural layer behind the railroad story. The property includes two houses and a kitchen building, with the earliest dwelling dating to the late eighteenth century, and it was added to the National Register in 2002. Today Whitakers is the northernmost town in both counties, a small Edgecombe-Nash crossroads with Rocky Mount nearby. The local scoop is that Whitakers has one foot in two counties and both feet on the railroad line.