2019-2022 Strategic Plan 2019-2020 Strategic Plan | Page 4

THE HISTORY OF
FAYETTEVILLE
The City of Fayetteville is located in Cumberland County, North Carolina. It encompasses roughly
146 square miles. The City is adjacent to Fort Bragg, a large United States Army installation
housing Airborne and Special Operations Forces. The Fayetteville Police Department (FPD) is an
internationally accredited law enforcement agency with the Commission on Accreditation for Law
Enforcement Agencies, Inc. The department was first accredited in 1989. FPD is a full-service law
enforcement agency with over 600 sworn and civilian employees.
The City of Fayetteville was formed in 1783 when the two settlements of Cross Creek and
Campbellton merged. The City was named after Marquis de Lafayette, a Revolutionary War hero.
It grew as an area of government and commerce because of its location as an inland port and the
hub of the early “Plank Roads” system. In 1805, the General Assembly of North Carolina
authorized the appointment of citizen patrols. The head of this group was known as the Magistrate
of Police and was an elected position. He was given the authority to sentence individuals for
violating the law. In 1816, the jailer of Cumberland County was authorized to receive people taken
in by the Town Watch until the magistrate could see them the next morning.
The records regarding the Police Department between 1880 and 1909 were lost in a fire. In the
early 1960’s the Fayetteville Observer interviewed three police officers that began working with
the Police Department in the 1940’s. They spoke about their first years on the force when rookies
were trained by “giving them a gun and showing them their beat”. Officers working downtown
knew to go back to the department when someone turned outside light on. At that time all the lights
downtown were turned off at midnight. Today, the Fayetteville Police Department is divided into
three (3) districts: Campbellton, Central and Cross Creek. The City of Fayetteville is the sixth
largest municipality and the fifth largest metropolitan in North Carolina. Today the department is
organized into two primary components: the Field Operations Bureau and the Specialized Services
Bureau and serves a population of 209,899 citizens.