“This festival was started in 1988 to preserve the heritage of blue-collar workers in the South and provide patrons an experience of life as it was lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s around Gaston County. The focal point of this annual 3-day fall festival is a restored operational cotton gin on permanent exhibit in the Gaston County Park in Dallas. Today more than 50,000 people are drawn here to see more than 300 exhibits of antique agricultural and textile machinery from all over the Southeast.”
— Gaston County Parks and Recreation Department