From J. Cole to Michelle Obama, a tour of Fayetteville’s unique connections

Fayetteville is a Southern city sharing many aspects of other such locales in our state: A traffic roundabout with a historic building in the center, for example, and a history where farming played a big role.

But there are also many local features we can say are just a bit different than what you might find elsewhere, or some locales connected to famous natives, or famous brushes with celebrities.

More: Independence Day: ‘Free man of color’ made mark on Fayetteville; served in Revolutionary War

Let’s call these places Unique Fayetteville and you may want to check a few of them out when you’re out this way.

Michelle Obama house

Former First Lady Michelle Obama never lived in Fayetteville, but she did create a big stir in 2011 when she and 4,000 community volunteers built a house here for an episode of the hit show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." The sizable Jubilee House on Langdon Street was designed for female veterans who were homeless or in transition. Over the years, it had some management disputes but still remains, renamed the Reveille Retreat, and is located just down the street from Fayetteville State University, a historically Black institution.

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North Carolina Veterans Park

One of a kind in the state, the state-run North Carolina Veterans Park in downtown Fayetteville recognizes all the state’s veterans with striking outdoor sculptures that honor individual qualities like courage, dedication and service. For those seeking a military-themed tour, the park is located across from the U.S. Army Airborne & Special Operations Museum and just down the street from Freedom Memorial Park, dedicated to veteran sacrifices in all wars.

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J. Cole home

Jermaine Cole, aka J. Cole, one of the world’s most famous rap stars, hails from Fayetteville, and his home on Forest Hills Drive has become a tourist site for his fans. We don’t need to tell you the address (it’s in the title of one of his most popular albums) but we kindly ask folks to remember it’s a neighborhood; so no sitting on the house, as Cole did on that album cover. For an added bonus, visit the J. Cole mural downtown, a postcard that Andaluz the Artist completed earlier this year.

Where Carson McCullers wrote

Author Carson McCullers wrote part of “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” considered one of the 20th Century’s greatest novels, at the Cool Spring Tavern in Fayetteville. This tavern at 119 N. Cool Spring St. is well-preserved and has other historical connections, including serving as a lodging house for delegates to the 1789 Constitutional Convention.

Viva la Lafayette

There are 150 places nationwide named for Lafayette, the fighting Frenchman from the American Revolution and the gruff-voiced co-star in the hit play “Hamilton.” But the Marquis only visited one of those places in person: Fayetteville, North Carolina, in March of 1825. A historical marker notes the occasion at downtown's Cross Creek Linear Park, where a statue of Lafayette cuts a handsome profile. The time is right, too: Lafayette’s ’ Bicentennial Farewell Tour kicks off in August and goes into 2025, when it will stop in Fayetteville, as the marquis himself did, in March.

Paraclete XP

Paraclete XP is indoor skydiving located just west of Fayetteville, in Hoke County, and offers flyers a chance to experience freefall in a wind tunnel. Not just a rare experience, but one that highlights the region’s strong military ties — the founder Tim D'Annunzio was part of the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team.

The Babe Ruth home run

Babe Ruth, the one-time homerun king, dinged out his first professional homer during a spring training visit here in 1914. As reported in The Fayetteville Observer: “Having signed just two weeks earlier with the then-minor league Baltimore Orioles, Ruth launched a shot ‘350 to 400 feet’ to right field in his second time at bat during an intersquad exhibition March 7 at the Cape Fear Fairgrounds.” A historical marker on Gillespie Street marks the site, but for baseball in Fayetteville these days, you will have to travel a little bit north to downtown to take in a Fayetteville Woodpeckers game at Segra Stadium.

Omar Ibn Said marker and mosque

Enslaved person and scholar: There are not many people in U.S. history with that resume, but Omar Ibn Said is one. A member of a prominent Muslim family in West Africa, he was kidnapped in 1807 toward the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Fayetteville, Sampson County and Wilmington are among the places he lived. He wrote a slave narrative that was translated into Arabic and considered the only work of its kind. A historical marker on Murchison Road is placed for him in front of the mosque that bears his name. Resurgence in his unique life has attracted renewed interest with the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, “Omar.”

Mack’s Barber Shop

Mack’s Barber Shop at 334 Gillespie St. dates to the late 1930s and is most likely the only place in Fayetteville still operating as a business that was once in the Green Book — a guide that informed Black travelers of safe spaces they could stay during Jim Crow segregation. The guides were featured in the 2018 hit movie “Green Book.” In 1939, Macks became a meeting space for St. Ann Catholic Church’s Black congregation, which had faced discrimination and had been meeting in private homes; shop owner Frank McKay was a member and offered the space. The church located at 357 N. Cool Spring St. downtown has a stained glass window in honor of McKay.

Gillis Hill Farm and produce stand

The Gillises are a generational farm family in west Cumberland County, and they have carved out a unique place in the agritourism space located, appropriately, on Gillis Hill Road. Separate businesses include a produce stand and a pick-your-own strawberry field; a playground made in part from converted farm equipment; and down the street, a small but entertaining menagerie of goats, chickens, horses and an ice cream shop that serves up the best scoops in the city.

Dennis Smith Jr. basketball courts

Dennis Smith Jr. of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets grew up playing ball on the courts at Smith Recreation Center off Murchison Road. In 2019 he returned with a major gift: A complete makeover of the aging courts into stunning blacktop versions sponsored by Under Armour. Smith, a favorite son known for giving back, was awarded that same year the key to the city.

History Village

The VanStory History Village off Arsenal Avenue comprises three historic homes — the Arsenal House, Davis House and Culbreth House — that date to the Civil War and Reconstruction and are education facilities for K-12 students and places of research for university students. The village is the first component in what will eventually be a $87 million state-sponsored site, the N.C. History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction, slated to open in 2027. So, come back for that, too.

Opinion Editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: From J. Cole to Michelle Obama, a tour of Fayetteville’s unique connections