Welcome to HickoryRecord.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

HickoryRecord.com - Hickory Daily Record

HomeNewsEntertainmentSportsLifestylesOpinionCommunityWeather Online Tools Jobs | Real Estate | Shopping | Classified

Through the time tunnel -- Hickory 99 years ago

Five O'Clock Shadow

By Charles Deal | Special to the Record

Published: January 12, 2009

A promotion book printed and circulated in 1910 — 99 years ago — painted a picture of Hickory as a mini-metropolis.

"Hickory Does Things" was the slogan of the booklet likely used to introduce more people to a town on its way toward becoming a thriving city.

One observation hasn't changed. Hickory was listed at 1,164 feet above sea level, the highest elevation before reaching the mountains. The city claimed a population of 5,000 and the county 30,000 and growing.

"The healthful and invigorating air is conducive to clear thinking, bringing out all there is in the student. While in low climates, men and women are not capable of doing their best work."

Two weekly newspapers served the city, the Times Mercury and the Democrat, "each edited by men of ability and enterprise."

Early promoters were not above using a little snake oil to entice new families.

Charlotte in that era was 76 miles away. Today, it's more like 50 miles, the result of modern highway construction. Years earlier, a plank road served wagon traffic to Hickory Tavern, a makeshift hotel with food and second-story sleeping quarters.

The institutions of higher learning served the populace, St. Paul's Academy in Conover, devoted to training boys for business and college; and Female Claremont College, the present site of old Hickory High and now the Arts Center of Catawba Valley. It was operated by the German Reformed Church, offering splendid courses in music.

Lenoir College, later to become Lenoir-Rhyne, was coeducational and offered studies under the best possible conditions.

All of the institutions were situated on beautiful campuses. Only Lenoir-Rhyne survived. Catawba College, later founded in Newton, relocated to Salisbury years later.

Early Hickory was cradled in a wagon. In 1880, it was selected as the site of a new enterprise.

Piedmont Wagon Co. was reorganized in 1889 and remained in Hickory instead moving elsewhere as was planned.

Little time passed before Piedmont and Hickory farm wagons were known nationally. The plant covered 15 acres and became one of the largest employers in the Catawba Valley. The famous wagons were built directly from the forest. Production capacity was 10,000 a year.

Meanwhile, textiles in all forms were beginning to emerge. Three large cotton mills were in production. Brookford, a community that reflected the names of its developers — HolBROOK and ShuFORD — produced sateen and scrim curtains. Ivey Mill Co. in West Hickory made high-grade sateen, used almost exclusively for the lining of men's tailor-made coats. The A.A. Shuford Mill Co. made coarse yarns.

Diversification included two furniture companies, two tanneries, a pump factory, a harness factory, a machine shop, two hosiery mills, a steam laundry and two roller mills with a value of $1.8 million and an annual output of $2.2 million, plus employing a large work force.

In World War I, Piedmont Wagon produced carts for the French Army. Carts were constructed for the use of U.S. forces in World War II, but the end was in sight for horse-drawn wagons.

Trucks and tractors filled farm needs formerly served by the Piedmont wagons.

An abundance of wood led to other industries and became the template for more furniture enterprises. Early woodworking centers were Hickory Manufacturing Co., Hutton & Bourbonnais and Hickory Novelty Co., offering all types of building materials.

A large domestic and foreign business resulted.

Another plus in growth was an abundance of electric power for manufacturing and home use.
The retail sales outlets included grocers, hardware, furniture, dry goods, stationery, millinery and restaurants. Few cities this size could boast of three well-equipped drug stores.

Few large cities had a fine opera house, either, that seated 1500 people. Two banks, First National and Hickory Banking and Trust Co., served the valley.

Huffry Hotel was among the state's finest, and Southern Railway divided the city in half, making frequent stops to transport people and goods for 50 years, corresponding with the date that Hickory became a city.

Over the past 99 years, during the most severe economic downturns, Hickory somehow managed to reinvent itself.

Charles Deal is a former newspaper editor and publisher. Reach him at chazdeal@aol.com.