Tag: gaston county nc

New in the collection: Cotton Ginning Days pinback

Pinback for Cotton Gining Days 24th Annual show on October 7 through 9, 2011. Pinback features an image of a cotton gin.
“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

It’s not easy being Gastonia (or Garner, Leicester….)

“Don’t feel bad, Gastonia. Every town has a little sister to pick on.

“In Raleigh they poke fun at….”

— From “Does Gaston County have an image problem?” by Adam Orr in the Gaston Gazette, Jan. 24 (h/t, John L. Robinson)

 

Today’s link dump has had no contact with agents

— Click away a leisurely afternoon with these 206 images of Asheville from the Library of Congress.

— “The Nylon Capital of the World… need not embellish its past with a bogus story about Leonidas Polk.”

— The distinctive architecture of Gaston County’s oldest building “came down the Great Wagon Road.”

— Hugh McColl Jr. recalls “the most boring city I’d ever seen in my life.” (Relax, Raleigh, he’s not talking about you.)

Why markers go up, why markers come down

A few words with Michael Hill, coordinator of the N.C. Highway Historical Marker Program:

Of the 7 markers approved in the last round, 5 recognize blacks and 1 a Cherokee. Is the marker advisory committee playing catch-up? Is this a formal policy?

We have no established policy but rather operate based primarily on what comes through the transom.  If you check Blacks in the Keywords search box, you’ll see that a heavy proportion of those since I joined the staff in 1982 have been African American.  In the broader sense, this might be seen as catch-up but, more precisely, it’s a reflection of public interest.
–
What caused removal of the marker for Tryon’s March in Polk County in Macon County? How often does this happen?

Removal of markers is uncommon.  The note on the remaining Tryon’s March marker page [O-34] explains the situation, i.e., we got it wrong.  Likewise with a Stoneman’s Raid marker in Newton.  It’s no longer there; he missed Newton by 40 miles.  Irony of ironies, the number once assigned to that marker is now on the Hiram Revels marker in Lincolnton [O-12].  When Jeff Davis left the Senate, some predicted that one day his seat would be filled by a black man and it came to pass.  That man was Revels.
–

How unusual was Gaston County’s decades-long rejection of a marker for the Loray Mill Strike [O-81]?

Also rare are objections by local parties to a marker.  Gastonia is the prime example.

In Raleigh descendants of W. W. Holden at one time opposed mention of impeachment on his marker [H-92].  But it stands today, right outside the N&O office, and indicates that he was impeached and removed.

County commissioners in Greene County were not thrilled about the prospect of the James Glasgow marker [F-66] noting that he was convicted on land fraud charges but they did not stand in the way of its placement.