Monroe, North Carolina Monroe, North Carolina Monroe is a city in and the county seat of Union County, North Carolina, United States. The population increased from 26,228 in 2000 to 32,797 in 2010. It is within the rapidly growing Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC-SC Metropolitan area. Monroe has a council-manager form of government. Monroe was founded as a planned settlement. In 1843, the first Board of County Commissioners, appointed by the General Assembly, selected an area in the center of the county as the county seat, and Monroe was incorporated that year. It was named for James Monroe, the country’s fifth president. It became a
James Monroe Trotter Blanche Kelso Bruce was appointed to the office, serving 1891–1893. Trotter died of tuberculosis after his return to Boston. The James M. Trotter Convention Center in Columbus, Mississippi was named in his honor. "James Monroe Trotter (1842–1892) was a prominent 19th-century civil rights advocate. He came to Boston to join the Massachusetts 54th* Regiment, the first African-American corps of soldiers in the Civil War. After the war, Trotter became the highest ranking, non-elected African-American in the federal government in his position as Federal Recorder of Deeds. He was the father of civil-rights leader William Monroe Trotter." – The Bostonian Society,