Raleigh
Ever heard of Bute County? What about Tryon, Dobbs or Bath counties?

During various periods of the 17th and 18th centuries, each of these now extinct counties enjoyed defined borders and local governments in North Carolina. Colonial and early state administrators, responding to growing populations and changing needs, ultimately broke up the mega-counties.

Bath County, which included a large swath of the state, became the first to go in 1739, its territory undergoing several reconfigurations to become a number of modern-day counties.

Dobbs was ultimately divided into Wayne, Greene, Lenoir and Sampson counties. Bute became Franklin and Warren; Tryon is modern-day Lincoln and Rutherford.

These weren’t the only super-counties. A number of our current counties once were far more massive. Bladen County, created from carved up Bath County, once included Cumberland, Moore and Robeson counties. Cumberland, in turn, included Moore during much of the skullduggery that occurred in the region during the Revolutionary War period.

Before being partitioned itself, Bute County was part of Granville County.

Not all of the fun with county lines was confined to the 18th century. Lee and Hoke counties, for example, aren’t even a century old. Both were formed from surrounding counties early in the 20th century.

So what relevance do these dancing lines hold for today?

Well, first, maybe state and local officials should take note that county borders are in fact lines on a piece of paper, not grooves etched in stone.

Lately, county officials have been trekking to Raleigh quite a bit, hat in hand. They want legislators to have state taxpayers absorb the county’s share of the Medicaid tab (about 5 percent of the total cost). Some want to hold voter referendums on raising the local portion of the sales tax.

No doubt, county governments — which must pay for landfills, school construction, local jails, law enforcement and significant portions of welfare programs — battle a constant financial squeeze.

But perhaps instead of looking to Raleigh, they should look at themselves. Maybe the root problem can be found in those lines.

Today, in a world connected by roads with 65 mph speed limits and speed-of-light computers, do we really need 100 counties? Clearly, some county governments already recognize that savings can be gained through economies of scale and consolidation. Several already operate regional landfills together.

What about the rest of the local bureaucracies? Does it make sense for counties with less than 20,000 residents — about 15 of them in the mountains and Coastal Plain — to operate independent school systems, sheriff departments and jails?

Surely Republicans, who say they want less government, wouldn’t oppose a surefire way to have less government.

Of course, political reality is that people vested with power, whether Democrat or Repub-lican, don’t easily give it up.