mber center in North Carolina and one of the largest in all of the South.
During this time, as many as 16 lumber mills were running and employing
hundreds of men from New Bern and the area. The competitive nature of the
lumber barons, the abundance of lumber and craftsmen, led to the construction
in New Bern of some of the finest homes in the South, many of which have
survived. The lumber boom lasted until the 1920s. One by one the lumber mills
went out of business. Today only Weyerhaeuser manufactures lumber in the area.
After the publication of Jules Verne's 1896
novel Face au Drapeau (Face the Flag), New Bern gained brief fame as the place
where one of that story's main characters is committed to an asylum by the US
government
