Join us for a deep dive with author Mack Paul into the historical milestones and local community efforts that made RTP a reality. Whether you have a personal connection to the Park, an interest in urban development, or just a curiosity about how our region became a global innovation hub, this is for you. Authors Mack and Allen Paul ‘s Miracle Road: The Story of Research Triangle Park research provided the basis for the 2025 MoDH exhibit, Made in the Triangle: The Story of RTP.

Miracle Road: The Story of Research Triangle Park is the definitive history of how a coalition of governors, university presidents, businessmen, scientists, and community leaders transformed one of the nation’s poorest states into a global high-tech powerhouse.

Based on more than 160 exclusive interviews conducted over four years, Miracle Road traces RTP’s origins in the 1950s through its emergence as a worldwide model for research-driven economic development. Authors Allen Paul and Mack Paul chronicle four distinct eras of the park’s growth: its rocky founding and near-collapse before IBM’s landmark 1965 decision to build there; the rise of iconic companies like Burroughs Wellcome; the setbacks of the dot-com era; and RTP’s current transformation into a mixed-use innovation hub drawing Apple, Fidelity, and top biomanufacturers.

More than just a regional history, the book brings to life the remarkable people and discoveries that shaped the region, including:

• Black community leaders in Wake County who successfully argued that school desegregation would make the region more appealing to tech companies, helping North Carolina land IBM over Virginia.

• A chance meeting between Governor Jim Hunt and a Danish pharmaceutical executive that led to Novo Nordisk making North Carolina the epicenter of weight-loss drug manufacturing.

• The discovery of the cancer drug Taxol in the bark of a Pacific yew tree by Monroe Wall and Mansukh Wani at the Research Triangle Institute.

• Mary-Dell Chilton, the “godmother of ag biotech,” leading the creation of the first transgenic plant in 1983.