North Carolina Highway 71 (NC 71) is a state highway that serves the communities of Maxton, Red Springs, Shannon, Lumber Bridge, and Parkton.

Route description

The southern terminus of the route is US Highway 74 Business and Martin Luther King Drive in central Maxton, from there the route follows North Patterson St to the US Highway 74 / Future Interstate 74 interchange. Shortly after leaving town, the route has a brief incursion into Scotland County, it returns to Robeson County by crossing the Lumber River

Lumber River

The Lumber River is a river in south-central North Carolina in the flat Coastal Plain. European settlers first called the river Drowning Creek, which still is the name of its headwater. The waterway known as the Lumber River extends downstream from the Scotland County-Hoke County border to the...

. The route has a brief concurrency with NC 211 in Red Springs and continues north to Shannon. To the north the highway serves Lumber Bridge, where it intersects NC 20, and Parkton. The northern terminus of the route is U.S. Highway 301, just outside of Parkton.

History

The route was created in 1928 running from Maxton to Red Springs. In 1930 the route was extended, receiving a southern terminus in Rowland, and its current nothern terminus with present-day US 301. The southern terminus of the route was again extended in 1931 reaching modern-day NC 41 just south of Fairmont. In the 1940s, NC 71 south of Maxton was rebadged as NC 130, gaining its current routing.

Major intersections