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High Point was founded in 1859. The city fathers' first act was to petition the legislature to split High Point from Guilford County.

"We're tired of being treated like Greensboro's red-headed stepchild," they said.

The legislature ignored them, as it would many times again.

As a long-time resident of Guilford County's second city, I'd like to salute its 150th anniversary with my own version of unverified High Point history. Please bear with me.

The city began at the intersection of the Fayetteville and Western Plank Road and the North Carolina Railroad. It took its name from surveyors' reckoning that it sat at the highest point of the Charlotte-to-Goldsboro rail line.

And also because it was destined to rise to heights of industry and culture unsurpassed in North Carolina.

The Plank Road pioneered the route of present-day Main Street and was heavily traveled -- especially on Friday and Saturday nights when local teenagers cruised up and down in their tricked-out buggies and farm wagons.

The Civil War confounded residents of the young city, until they decided to take the opposite side as Greensboro.

After the war, a former Union army officer named William Henry Snow moved to Greensboro, where he had visited during the recent hostilities. High Point leaders offered Capt. Snow economic incentives to relocate to their city and open a spoke-and-handle factory. In short order, this enterprise led to a lumber mill and then to the establishment of several furniture factories.

By 1909, High Point was making so much furniture it decided to hold a market, inviting buyers from all over the world. The Elwood Hotel tripled its room rates and made a killing.

In the meantime, a pair of entrepreneurs named Adams and Millis ventured into hosiery manufacturing, launching an industry that, for a while, would rival furniture for High Point supremacy.

"Greensboro has cornered the market on denim trousers," Adams-Millis reportedly said, "but we will make white athletic socks to wear with them." It was High Point's first fashion coup.

High Point branded itself as the Furniture Capital of the World on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the Hosiery Capital of the World on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. On Sundays, High Point went to church to pray it would outgrow Greensboro.

Not all High Point's industry was furniture and hosiery. In 1916, Perley Thomas began producing streetcars and later -- anticipating the "school choice plan" that would move students from one end of High Point to the other -- switched to making school buses.

High Point's success stems from its can-do spirit. Early business leaders would pool their resources and start a company, pulling out profits to begin another and then another. Public works were accomplished in the same way. When High Point needed a reservoir, it built a dam, flooded a valley and had City Lake. And then Oak Hollow Lake in the same way. There was no endless delay for environmental impact studies or worries about endangered minnows. When new developments were proposed, no one filed protest petitions or raised objections. Just Do It was an attitude that originated in High Point.

High Point always has afforded opportunity for those willing to work hard. Nido Qubein came to High Point as an immigrant with $50 in his pocket and founded High Point University. William Shakespeare was virtually unknown in North Carolina until a High Point theater company introduced his plays to a benighted region. John Coltrane was just a mixed-up kid with some crazy tunes in his head until High Point gave him jazz. Fantasia Barrino was just another aimless teenager until High Point inspired her to find the song in her heart.

Other great High Pointers have made an impact in the world:

* U.S. Ambassador Capus Waynick stood shoulder to shoulder with the Somoza regime to fend off communism in Nicaragua in the 1950s.

* Gen. Maxwell Thurman conquered Panama in 1989.

* Double Grammy winner Tony Griffey added a third title for his hometown: Opera Capital of the World.

There have been ups and downs throughout the years. Most of the local industries have been bought out by foreign interests. Many of the factories have closed.

But the furniture market has overcome threats from Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta, and surely will beat back competition from a desert town that was a mere mule-train crossroads when High Point was at its peak.

As for Greensboro: Who's running the marathon now?