Misenheimer, is an incorporated village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Stanly County, North Carolina

Stanly County, North Carolina

-Demographics:As of the census of 2010, there were 60,585 people. In 2000 there were 22,223 households, and 16,156 families residing in the county. The population density was 147 people per square mile . There were 24,582 housing units at an average density of 62 per square mile...

. It is in the southern Piedmont

Piedmont (United States)

The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the eastern United States between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New Jersey in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division...

 region of North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, near the city of Richfield

Richfield, North Carolina

Richfield is a town in Stanly County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 515 at the 2000 census.- Geography :Richfield is located at ....

.

It was charter

Municipal charter

A city charter or town charter is a legal document establishing a municipality such as a city or town. The concept developed in Europe during the middle ages....

ed on in 2003 directly (without a local referendum

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

) by the North Carolina General Assembly

North Carolina General Assembly

The North Carolina General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of North Carolina. The General Assembly drafts and legislates the state laws of North Carolina, also known as the General Statutes...

, becoming effective on June 26. The town was created without citizen referendum, in a political move to prevent the federal and state permitted re-exploration of the former Barringer gold mine by local entrepreneur and developer Joe Carter. Carter bought 240 acres and assayed the mine at over a billion US dollars in gold ore in 1998.(1) It has a mayor-council government

Mayor-council government

The mayor–council government system, sometimes called the mayor–commission government system, is one of the two most common forms of local government for municipalities...

 with five total council members serving staggered four-year term

Term of office

Term of office or term in office refers to the length of time a person serves in a particular office.-Prime Minister:In the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister has no term limits...

s. The council elects one of its own members as the mayor every two years, and may remove and replace the mayor as well. This system prevents the direct general election of a mayor by the citizens of the town. Members are elected at-large (without districts) and in a non-partisan manner. The local legislation creating the city specified that election

Election

An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

s were to be held in even-numbered years, while the rest of the state always uses odd-numbered ones.

The college town

College town

A college town or university town is a community which is dominated by its university population...

 is dominated by the main campus of Pfeiffer University

Pfeiffer University

Pfeiffer University is a private university located in the village of Misenheimer near Richfield, North Carolina.- History :Pfeiffer originated from a home school operated by Miss Emily Prudden in the late 19th century...

, a university which was formed from financial support by Henry and Annie Merner Pfeiffer of NY. Pfeiffer also housed Gray Stone Day School, a charter

Charter school

Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...

 high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

. On January 6, 2011, Gray Stone moved to its new campus on what was previously Pfeiffer land in the town.

U.S. Route 52

U.S. Route 52

U.S. Route 52 is a United States highway that runs across the northern, eastern and southeastern regions of the United States. Contrary to most other even-numbered U.S...

 passes through Misenheimer along its route from Salisbury to Albemarle, and bisects the Pfeiffer campus along with a Norfolk Southern Railroad line. Misenheimer may be the only municipality in America whose only traffic light

Traffic light

Traffic lights, which may also be known as stoplights, traffic lamps, traffic signals, signal lights, robots or semaphore, are signalling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings and other locations to control competing flows of traffic...

is not at an intersection of two or more streets, but at a crosswalk to accommodate pedestrian traffic (the crosswalk being across US 52 connecting the two parts of Pfeiffer's campus on opposite sides of the highway).

External links

Village of Misenheimer
(1)Village Ploy Stops Goldmine. http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=2459