Historic Downtown Walking Tour
A Walking Tour of Historic Downtown Lincolnton
Lincoln County is situated in the southwestern portion of North Carolina's Piedmont region. The county's boundaries, encompassing 307 square miles, extend in the form of a long rectangle measuring 30 miles in length and 10 miles wide. Bordered by the Catawba River to the east, Cleveland County to the west, Gaston County to the south and Catawba County to the north, Lincoln County's landscape contains a rolling terrain full of gentle streams and creeks with natural resources that enrich the area's environment and contribute to economic development.
As early as the mid-18th century, settlers from areas of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina, primarily of the German and Scots-Irish persuasion, flocked to this area to take advantage of the inexpensive land and rich farmland prevalent in the Carolina backcountry. Traversing the rugged terrain of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Staunton River Gap along the "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road," these immigrants established their settlements throughout Lincoln County. On their trip, they brought traces of their native homelands in the forms of speech, behavior, religious beliefs, art and written and oral traditions.
On April 19, 1779, Lincoln County, North Carolina, named for Major General Benjamin Lincoln, commenced government. Benjamin Lincoln, originally from Massachusetts, was the commander of the Southern Department of the Continental Army and received the official British sword of surrender at Yorktown. Lincoln never visited the area and after the establishment of Lincoln County and the Revolutionary War, he went on to become the Secretary of War in 1781 and to suppress the potentially disastrous uprising known as Shay's Rebellion in 1787. The initial county was 1800 square miles and one of the biggest in the state. It included a large portion of today's Cleveland County and all of both present-day Gaston and Catawba counties. The county was partitioned in the 1840s and today Lincoln County is 307 square miles. The township of Lincolnton was established as the county seat on December 29, 1785. It was laid out with a central courthouse surrounded by a grid plan of streets, blocks and lots with four primary streets - East Main, West Main, North Aspen and South Aspen - leading from the courthouse and dividing the town into quadrants. Over time, development in Lincolnton filled the original grid plan, expanded it, and eventually moved beyond it while maintaining the four principal arteries like compass points.
The history of St. Luke's began on the night of November 29, 1841 when a group of thirteen citizens of Lincolnton gathered in the Pleasant Retreat Academy and formed a congregation to be known as St. Luke's Church. The deed to the land was transferred on March 2, 1842 from Col. John Hoke to the trustees of St. Luke's Church. On March 9, the cornerstone of the first church was laid. The church was consecrated on July 29, 1843 by the Right Reverend Levi Silliman Ives, the second Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina. St. Luke's was admitted into the diocese at the convention of 1843 and subsequently became a part of the Diocese of Western North Carolina in 1922.
St. Luke's Churchyard
The historic churchyard of St. Luke's came into use with the building of the church in 1842. The earliest group of gravestones date from the 1850s to the 1870s. There are two adjoining cast iron fences that date from the late 1860s and enclose the graves of Major General Stephen Dodson Ramseur (1837 to 1864) and William (d. 1863) and Edward (d. 1864) Phifer, all of whom died in the Civil War. Ramseur, the youngest Major General in the Confederate Army was mortally wounded and died at the age of 27 after the Battle of Cedar Creek in Virginia.
Several rows to the east of the Ramseur fence is the monument of William Alexander Hoke (1851 to 1925), who was elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1904 as an associate justice and served as chief justice of North Carolina until 1925. In a corner of the churchyard is a tombstone in the form of a six-legged table that marks the remains of Lorenzo Ferrer (1780 to 1875), a native of Lyons, France. The most important signed monument was created by the well-known marble yard of J. Baird, Philadelphia. It is the monument of Caroline Rebecca Guion who died in childbirth in 1854.
Address
315 N Cedar Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Head south on Cedar Street, and the Lincoln Cultural Center will be on your left as you come to Main Street. It was built in 1922 as the First Baptist Church of Lincolnton, a congregation organized in 1859. This building was designed by James M. McMichael, a Charlotte architect famous for his church designs. The building is laid in the shape of a cross with a dome sitting in the middle. It became the Lincoln Cultural Center in September 1991 after First Baptist Church moved to the 321 bypass.
This is the third building to house the Baptist congregation in Lincolnton. They held their first meetings at the Old White Church, now Emmanuel Lutheran Church and the congregation was officially organized on May 28, 1859. Of the nine charter members, seven were women.
This congregation built their first church building in 1883 or 1884 on East Water Street between the court square and South Academy Street. They purchased the lot at 403 East Main Street in 1919 for $6,200 and completed the construction of their building by 1922. The construction cost was $40,000. The congregation enlarged the building in 1951 by adding an educational wing at the building's rear, north elevation. They built a new church building on Generals Boulevard in 1979, and their former building became the home of the Lincoln Campus of Gaston College. The building became the Lincoln Cultural Center in 1991 and is home to the Lincoln County Historical Association, Lincoln County Museum of History, Arts Council of Lincoln County and Lincoln Theatre Guild.
It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Address
403 E Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Turn right on Main Street. The Lincolnton Post Office sits on the left at 326 East Main Street.
Inside, on the west wall of the post office, Richard H. Jansen's "Threshing Grain" mural hangs in the same place it has been since 1938. Restored in 2005, the painting is fourteen feet wide and four feet, six inches high. Jansen painted the mural in his studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1938.
"Threshing Grain" Mural
The mural has a total approximate area of 63 square feet. Jansen used the medium oil on canvas, and completed the mural in 232 calendar days. The mural was later transported on canvas to Lincolnton by train. The subject matter has a local theme. In a handwritten letter dated September 18, 1937, Jansen suggested an agricultural theme "...as I felt I couldn't go wrong, since the town is certainly bound up with the county around it." Although grain was and still is cultivated in Lincoln County, one must speculate the wheat grown in Wisconsin and the Great Plains influenced Jansen's creative process. Jansen received $610 for painting the Lincolnton mural. On June 9, 1938, Postmaster J.F. Seagle announced in the Lincoln County News the mural's placement in the west end of the building and its depiction of a rural Lincoln County scene. Thanks to contributions from the USPS and individuals and businesses in Lincoln County.
Address
326 E Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
This church building stands just north of the Lincolnton Post Office, across East Main Street. The origins of Emanuel Reformed Church, which is housed in a 1913 Gothic Revival structure, go back to the earliest days of organized worship in Lincolnton at the first Emanuels Church, commonly known as the Old White Church. As mother church to most of Lincolnton's congregations, the Old White Church was home to the combined Lutheran and Reformed congregations when it burned in 1893. The Lutherans built a new church on the site, but the Reformed congregation, which reorganized in 1910, was without its own building until 1913. The Gothic Revival style Emanuel Reformed Church was designed by Wilmington architect, Henry E Bonitz.
On April 20, 1991, lightning struck the church building. Fire destroyed most of the roof and damaged the northeast wall and part of the interior woodwork. Most of the pews were damaged or burned when the roof collapsed inward: they were repaired, refinished, and returned to use in the church. Rather than abandon the site of the first and only Reformed church erected in Lincolnton, the congregation determined to restore the church and remain at this site. Cherryville architect James L. Beam, Jr. prepared the drawings for the restoration, and the restoration construction work was completed by Howard Construction Company of Lincolnton. The first services in the newly-restored church were held on Easter Sunday, April 19, 1992.
Address
329 E Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Head West down Main Street and you will find the Mauney Building on your right, previously known as the Reeves Gamble Hospital.
Dr. John Reeves Gamble, Sr. and his brother, Dr. Jesse Frank Gamble, founded and opened the Gamble Clinic in 1930. It was later renamed the Reeves Gamble Hospital, Inc. In 1934, the 25-bed hospital was equipped with an x-ray machine, laboratory, operating room, and sterilizing equipment and was one of the most modern hospitals in the state. Dr. Frank Gamble died in 1943, just a year before the death of Dr. Reeves Gamble.
In 1948, Dr. John Reeves Gamble, Jr. came to practice in Lincolnton and became president of the Reeves Gamble Hospital. Dr. Gamble was called to serve in the army in 1954 and the hospital closed until his return in 1956. The hospital continued to grow in the 1960s and it became apparent that expansions were needed. It was decided that the best solution was to build an entirely new hospital. Dr. Gamble supported the construction of the Lincoln County Hospital, giving over $500,000 to the project, and the last patient of the Reeves Gamble Hospital was transferred to the Lincoln County Hospital in November 1969. The former hospital is now known as the Mauney Building.
Address
333 E Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Follow the Rail-Trail south, and enjoy the scenery until you come to South Academy Street. A right on Academy will take you back in the direction of Main Street.
The house sitting at the corner of 204 South Academy Street is the Frank Beal House. Mr. Frank Beal built this Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style house a few yards away from his place of work, R.F. Beal and Co. Feed and Sale, on East Water Street. Beal was in the Standard Oil business with C. H. Rhodes, who later owned the business under multiple names. The signs for Rhodes and Corriher can still be seen on the building on East Water Street.
The clipped north and south gable ends and the irregular form of the home reflect the influence of the late-nineteenth-century Queen Anne style. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Lincolnton saw an increase in population from 828 in 1900 to 3,390 by 1920. This increase precipitated the need for more houses, and there were 650 dwellings in the city limits of Lincolnton. Many of these houses were built in eclectic mixes of the Colonial Revival, Queen Anne, and bungalow styles. The only other architecturally comparable examples of dwellings built in the Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style near downtown Lincolnton are the Henry A. Kistler House on North Laurel Street and the John R. Moore House on South Cedar Street.
Address
204 S Academy Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Advance further on Academy and First United Methodist Church at 201 East Main Street will be on the right. The congregation of this church was established in 1816 and held their services in a building at the corner of South Aspen and Congress Streets. This is the third building erected by this congregation and its construction began, according to the plans of architect C. W Carlton, in 1919.
The church was built on the old home place of Vardry McBee, a saddle maker, merchant, farmer and Clerk of Court. This classical revival-style church was dedicated on Easter Sunday, 1924. First United Methodist Church and its cemetery on South Aspen Street are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Old Methodist Church Cemetery
Located at the intersection of South Aspen Street and West Congress Street, the 1.62-acre site, enclosed by a chain link fence, is about five blocks from the First United Methodist Church building.
In 1828, Reverend James Hill, the first pastor of what is now First United Methodist Church, was the first person to be buried in the cemetery. At the time of his burial, the Methodist church was known as the Lincolnton Circuit, and it was a part of the South Carolina Conference. The last known burial was in 1944 for Nancy Elizabeth Mullen. There are approximately 242 gravestones in the cemetery. After the last burial in 1944, interest in the cemetery declined greatly. By the second half of the twentieth century, many church members were unaware of its presence.
A revitalization project was begun in 2015 with several members meeting at the heavily-shaded cemetery to learn how to properly clean gravestones.
Address
201 E Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Continue north on Academy Street until it intersects with E Pine Street, and the Pleasant Retreat Academy/Memorial Hall is located at 129 E Pine Street. Chartered 0n December 10, 1813, this two-story Federal-style brick building was built between 1817 and 1820, making it the oldest remaining brick building in Lincolnton. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places and designated as a local historic landmark, this academy for boys counted some of the county's most famous figures among its students. These included Maj. Gen. Robert F. Hoke, Maj. Gen. Stephen Dodson Ramseur, Georgia Gov. Hoke Smith, NC. Gov. William A. Graham and Texas Gov. James Pinckney Henderson.
An early newspaper advertisement shows that the academy opened its doors on February 1, 1820, under the leadership of the Reverend Joseph E Bell, formerly of the Union Seminary in Sewanee, Tennessee.
During the years between 1878 and 1908, the building had a variety of uses. It served as a private residence for a time, but during much of this period a number of private schools were conducted on the ground floor. Miss Sallie B. Hoke conducted a private school in the building in 1884 and 1885, and between 1900 and 1904, Miss Kate Shipp conducted the Mary Wood School there.
On August 27, 1908, the building, no longer a school, was dedicated as the Confederate Memorial Hall and the meeting place of Lincolnton's Southern Stars Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The bottom floor served as a library from 1923 to 1965 and was the first public library in Lincoln County, informally established by a local book club.
Address
129 E Pine Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Return to Main Street. Sitting at the corner of Main and Academy Streets at 132 East Main Street is a building that began as Wampum General Store. It offered most household items to the residents of Lincoln County. It has also existed as a retail outlet, department store and pharmacy. Built around 1905, at the same time as many of the surrounding buildings, the storefront was originally brick with key stoned lintel and granite detail.
This two-story stuccoed-brick building at the southwest corner of East Main Street (128-132) and South Academy Street was erected between 1902 and 1906, when there was a tremendous surge in the construction of brick buildings. Between 1911 and 1921, 124 East Main Street was built as an addition to the original building. In 1916, the Wampum Department Stores became the Abernethy and Thompson Store, which, in 1921, became Efird's Department Store until the 1930s. When Efird's vacated the building, it became a retail drugstore, which it remained under several different owners until recent years. During the 1940s and 1950s it was known as Lincoln Cut Rate Drugs; subsequent to that it was simply Lincoln Drug. In the mid-twentieth century, the building also served as a community meeting place, with a large dining room and kitchen on the second floor.
The first block of East Main Street includes a variety of establishments as it has since before the 1920s. Some notable residents have been Ramseur Hardware (110 East Main), which was in business on the south side of the street for 97 years, First National Bank on the southwest corner, Childs-Wolfe Drug Company and Bob Hinson's Garage, both on the north side.
Address
132 E Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
119 East Main Street and 121 East Main were originally joined as one building, and while the west half was used for various stores, the east side was the Rivoli Theatre from 1920 to 1950. This is one of many theatres located in downtown Lincolnton over the years. In 1920, the building at 112 East Court Square was a movie theatre until it was converted into a bowling alley later that decade. Ab Miller opened the Grand Theatre at 227 East Main Street where it remained until 1940, when he opened the Century Theatre, one block east of the Rivoli. It remained there until the 1970s.
Between 1896 and 1902 a two-story brick building was erected at this location, it had two storefronts. Around 1920, the building was either replaced by a larger two-story brick building, or more likely, it was enlarged and the east half of it was converted to a movie theater known as the Rivoli Theatre. At that time the facade was altered to reflect its new use, with small projection room windows and a decorative entrance. In the 1940s the façade was remodeled once again while the Rivoli was still active. At this time the building acquired its present facade, although after the theater closed, probably ca. 1950, the storefronts were modernized. Throughout the time that the east half (121) of the building was used as a movie theater, the west half (119) was used by a variety of stores. A fabric awning shelters the storefront of 121. A flat metal canopy, now covered by a fabric awning, covers the storefront of 119 and the stair entrance. The six-bay-wide second story features plain stretcher-bond brickwork and recessed panels that enframe the one-over-one sash windows (originally six-over-six).
Address
119 E Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
As you walk down Main Street, the Lincoln County Courthouse will be directly in front of you. This building is the fifth courthouse of Lincoln County since 1785 when Lincolnton was named the county seat. Construction of the building began on September 30, 1921, according to the plans of architect James A. Salter of Raleigh. It cost about $350,000 to build. The three-story Classic Revival building has Doric columns on each side. The Courthouse is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Several monuments stand on the grounds of the Courthouse. A monument to the Confederate Soldiers of Lincoln County is made of granite and shelters a marble water fountain. This monument sits on the west side of the Courthouse and was actually built before the Courthouse in 1911. To commemorate the 1780 Battle of Ramsour's Mill, a plaque on a large rock known as Tarleton's tea table, sits on the north side of the Courthouse. The Jacob Forney Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution moved this rock from the battleground to the courthouse lawn. The Lincoln County War Memorial sits on the east side of the Courthouse and honors veterans from the Korean, Granada, Lebanon, Vietnam and both World Wars.
Representative Edgar Love introduced a bill to the state legislature in 1919 that directed the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners to erect a new courthouse. The old courthouse was vacated in May 1921 and torn down. The current courthouse was completed in June 1923, and the first court held in it convened on July 16, 1923, with Judge James L. Webb presiding. Alfred Nixon, the clerk, had prepared an interesting history of the courts and court buildings of the past which was read by his son, Joseph R. Nixon, followed by an appropriate address by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court William Alexander Hoke.
Address
1 Court Square
Lincolnton, NC 28092
If you continue to go clockwise around the Court Square, you will come to the Goodson, Jonas and Hoyle Building on the corner of North Aspen Street and North Court Square, street number 101.
C. L. Goodson, C. A. Jonas and P. A. Hoyle had this two-story brick building erected in 1924 and proudly put their names and the date on a marble panel near the roofline on the south elevation facing North Court Square. The three men owned a fuel oil company and had their offices on the second floor, which was accessed by a doorway with an unusual balustraded transom area located at the southeast corner of the building. The first story housed a distinctive automobile service station that was recessed beneath the second story with a drive-through accessed by large open bays on the south and west (North Aspen Street) elevations. Helping to support the second floor was the angled brick corner at the junction of North Court Square and North Aspen Street which was detailed with "hinged" corner joints. At one point the business was known as Bumgarner's Service Station and in 1957 it was listed in the city directory as the Central Service Station. Bob Ramseur purchased the building in 1970 and soon thereafter enclosed the open bays, converting them to storefronts for a sandwich shop and a yarn shop. At some point the adjacent, ca. 1925, one-story brick building facing North Aspen Street was joined by an inner passage to the Goodson, Jonas and Hoyle Building. Although the form of the two-story building is unusual in Lincolnton, the details clearly reflect the 1920s Commercial Style. A pedimented hood covers the corner entrance, and hip-roofed canopies shelter the 1970s storefronts.
Address
101 Court Square Drive
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Across the street from the James W Warren Citizens Center, at 101 West Court Square, you will see the Reinhardt Building. The Reinhardt Building, built in 1909 by local contractor Henry A. Kistler, is the oldest in the "Reinhardt Block", which has subsequent buildings constructed for R. S Reinhardt in 1910, 1913 and 1915. Reinhardt's name and building's construction dates are visible at the top of several of the buildings. The block is situated between West Main Street and West Sycamore Street. The Reinhardt Building is one of four, three-story buildings in the Lincolnton Commercial District, a National Register District, listed on December 16, 2015, which is evenly divided between one-story and two-story resources. This Classical Revival building is considered "one of three stylistically pivotal buildings in the district," the other two being the Lincoln County Courthouse and First United Methodist Church.
The Reinhardt Building is a three-story brick building and its rounded corner is one of the building's defining features. The building rests on a finished basement that was originally used as a pool room and lunch room after the building was completed in 1909. The two top floors have always housed offices, but the first floor was once the home of the Lincolnton Post Office.
Reinhardt was the owner of the Elm Grove Cotton Mill, one of the organizers of the Southern Cotton Spinners Association in 1897 and president of the American Cotton Manufacturers Association. He was also involved locally with both real estate and banking, serving as vice-president of the County National Bank and developing the Reinhardt Heights subdivision, both in Lincolnton.
Address
101 W Court Square
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Now turn down West Main and continue until you reach the First Presbyterian Church at 114 West Main Street. The building you see today was finished on September 16, 1917, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The First Presbyterian Church is the third church building erected in Lincolnton by a congregation that dates to 1815. Organized as Emanuel's Presbyterian Church, the congregation was the third to be established in a community that then, in 1815, had only Lutheran and Reformed churches. From 1815 until 1839, the church held services in the union church built by the Lutheran and Reformed congregations. In 1839, the congregation completed its first church on Water Street and renamed itself the Lincolnton Presbyterian Church. During the second half of the nineteenth century the fortunes of the Lincolnton Presbyterian Church rose during the long-term ministries of the Reverend Robert Newton Davis and the Reverend Robert Zenas Johnston. In the late 1880s, the church determined to build a new sanctuary and in May 1890 its trustees acquired a portion of the former Phifer estate, a lot at the corner of West Main and Government Streets. Here they built a fashionable Gothic Revival style church in 1891-1892. In 1916, the Lincolnton Presbyterian Church determined to build a new building on the site of their second church. The impressive Late Gothic Revival style church has a pair of twin towers flanking the gable-front facade. The well-finished and well-preserved church impressively represents one of several modes in which the Late Gothic Revival style was rendered across North Carolina in the opening decades of the twentieth century.
Address
114 W Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Follow West Main Street across Government Street and the first house you will come to is the Michal-Butt-Brown-Pressly House.
In 1806 Conrad Michal purchased this lot for $80 and built his house before 1819. In 1825, Conrad Michal, who had moved to South Carolina, sold this lot to his son, John Michal, for $850. In 1841 John Michal was forced to sell his home on West Main Street in order to satisfy the claims of his creditors. The house passed to John Hoke, one of the owners of the early nineteenth-century cotton mill at Laboratory, but after his death in 1845, the property was sold in 1847 to Dr. Zephaniah Butt, a physician. The amount and sophistication of the house's Federal style detailing, along with documentary evidence, suggest that it was probably erected by Conrad Michal in the 1810s. It is possible, however, that it was not built until the 1820s by John Michal. It is likely that Dr. Butt was responsible for the Greek Revival modifications to the house. In 1857, Dr. Butt sold his house and lot four to Martin L. Brown, another physician, for $2,500. According to an 1889 article in the Lincoln Courier, Dr. Butt, who had been one of Lincolnton's most successful physicians, moved to Florida in 1860. A year before his purchase of the property, Dr. Brown married Catherine E Bost, and the couple had two daughters-Violet and Lily. Although Martin Brown died in 1876, the house has remained in the ownership and occupancy of his descendants. In 1884 Violet Brown married physician John Pressly, but he died seven years later at the age of only thirty-one. Violet Brown Pressly survived until 1922; the Pressly's granddaughter is the current owner of the house.
This house is a contributing building in the West Main Street National Register Historic District.
Address
202 W Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
If you continue down West Main Street and cross High Street, you will find Shadow Lawn on your left at 301 West Main Street. This home was built by Paul Kistler (1782 to 1848), and his wife, Ann, in 1826 and is the last of Lincolnton's early nineteenth century brick residences still standing. Kistler was a successful Lincolnton businessman who owned and operated a tannery between Water Street and Church Street in Lincolnton. Ann Kistler was the sister of David Smith, who built the remarkably similar East Lincoln residence known as "Magnolia Grove" only two years earlier.
This two-story Federal style home was built with Flemish bond brickwork and is five bays wide and two bays deep over a full basement. The gutter boxes at the façade are dated "1826" and the one-story ells at the west and south elevations are later additions.
When Kistler died in 1848, the house passed to his family. Augustus Pinckney and Mary McCullough James purchased the house from the estate of Lawson Kistler in 1871. The James family occupied the house from 1871 to 1935 when Charles Raper and Annie Elliott Jonas purchased it. Jonas was a prominent Lincolnton attorney and served in the United State House of Representatives from 1952 until 1972.
The house is listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places, is a contributing building in the West Main Street National Register Historic District and is a local historic landmark.
Address
301 W Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Continuing around the Court Square, you will come to a historical marker noting the location of the old North State Hotel. It used to stand where the parking lot of the James W Warren Citizens Center is today.
First known as the Motz Hotel, later the Lincolnton Hotel, this building was renamed the North State Hotel in the 1890s. Some time prior to 1796, Jacob Summey and John Motz erected a house on Lot Number 1 in the Southwest Square and operated a mercantile business at the building. John M. Motz died on March 9, 1840, and his wife, Catherine, continued to reside at Lot Number 1. Newspaper advertisements in December 1840 document her residence on this lot and she was operating what was designated as "Mrs. Motz's hotel". She continued to reside on Lot Number 1 and operate the Motz hotel throughout the 1840s.
On November 25, 1862, the hotel property was conveyed to Samuel Lander, Jr., who converted the hotel into a boarding school for female students under the name Lincolnton Seminary. While ownership remained with the Lander family, by 1873 the building had been converted back into use as a hotel under the name of Lincolnton Hotel with various proprietors during the 1870s and 1880s. In 1891, members of the Lander family formed a corporation known as the North State Hotel Company to operate the building on Lot Number 1. In 1906, Thomas Edison arrived with his son and brother-in-law looking for cobalt for an experiment with the alkaline battery. The trio stayed at the hotel for ten days, paying two dollars a day for room and board. The North State Hotel was sold on June 2, 1966 to the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners and was demolished in January 1968 in order for the land on which it stood to be used as a parking lot.
Address
115 W Main Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092
Travel south of the courthouse until you reach Emmanuel Lutheran Church at 216 South Aspen Street.
The Old White Church was built on the site diagonally across the intersection from the current church and next to the graveyard in 1788. It was a building shared by Lutherans and Presbyterians and was used for public worship, burial of the dead and as a schoolhouse. The Lutheran congregation was the first organized congregation in Lincolnton and the sermons were delivered in German until 1822. The Old White Church burned in 1893 and a brick church built on the same site was entirely Lutheran. The Presbyterians moved to West Main Street.
The current church was built in the early 1920s. It represents the Gothic style and the floor layout of the sanctuary reflects the shape of a cross as Gothic churches often do. Emmanuel Lutheran Church and the Old White Church Cemetery are both listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Old White Church Cemetery - The first church deed recorded in Lincolnton was January 10, 1788 for two acres at a cost of ten shillings, plus tax, which was $2.40. This lot would be the site of the Dutch Meeting House, the Old White Church and the first brick church in town.
Reverend John Gottfried Arends arrived in Lincoln County in 1785 to organize the local Lutherans. Reverend Arends died in 1807 and was buried under the Dutch Meeting House.
Inside of the decorative fence that encircles the cemetery is the John Hoke family tomb.
Gravestones date from 1807 to 2013. Reverend Arends, whose grave stone is written in German, was the first. The last burial in this cemetery was Elizabeth Schrum Little, December 14, 2013.
Address
216 S Aspen Street
Lincolnton, NC 28092