Est. 1948 here as first local historic district in N.C. Prototype for state’s local historic preservation laws.
Topics Related to Winston-Salem
On December 13, 1951, North Carolina dressmaker Molly McCoy Hancock died.Born in 1863, McCoy grew up in Rockingham County with her five siblings. Her mother owned one of the first sewing machines in the area and wove her own cloth. Hancock learned how to be a seamstress by watching her mother work. She found the work to be so engaging that she ended up designing and making dresses for her sisters and classmates.
On November 17, 1753, fifteen Moravian men from Pennsylvania arrived in present-day Forsyth County on the land they called Wachovia. Bethabara, which means “House of Passage,” was the first community built in Wachovia.
On July 13, 1937, Vernon Rudolph began making yeast-raised doughnuts in a rented building in Winston-Salem. He used a secret recipe he had bought from a New Orleans French pastry chef. The name “Krispy Kreme” had come with the recipe, and Rudolph decided to keep it. He initially sold his glazed confections to local groceries, but when people started asking to buy his fresh, hot doughnuts, he cut a hole in the bakery’s wall and began selling them directly to customers.
On May 13, 1913, the town of Salem and the city of Winston merged to form the new city of Winston-Salem through the election of a new unified city board.The two municipalities that would eventually become Winston-Salem came from two strikingly different backgrounds. The town of Salem traced its lineage back to 1753, when it was established by Moravian Bishop August Spangenberg. Winston, named for Joseph Winston, was created in 1849 as the county seat for newly formed Forsyth County.