The Ultimate Guide To Asheville and the Western North Carolina Mountains

The Online Version of the Best-selling Regional Guidebook
 

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The Catawba County Museum of History offers testimony to the hardy settlers of the Catawba River Valley and their resourceful descendants who carved a world-renowned furniture and textile empire out of the backwoods. The story is artfully displayed in the unique setting of the former Catawba County Courthouse, an imposing National Register Renaissance Revival structure built in 1924, on the square in downtown Newton.
    Museum collections include agricultural tools and implements forged from hand-dug iron ore, and handcrafted household cupboards, wagon benches, beds, tables, chests, cradles, plantation desks, a firkin, and miniature furniture samples shown by “drummers” or early salesmen. There are treasured military uniforms, including a British Red Coat from the Revolutionary War era (one of the few such coats in existence) and a major repository of Civil War objects.
    Two full-scale, original antebellum parlors have been reconstructed and preserved in the museum, the Shuford-Jarett from 1830, featuring deft molding-plane embellishments and pegged muntins, and the Munday Parlor from 1840, with trompe l’oeil dentils, marbleized wooden baseboards, and a hand-painted dazzling central medallion. Visitors can also walk through Dr. Hambrick’s 1920s medical office, containing his ice-cold stainless steel examination table and an extensive variety of instruments from the period.
     Also on permanent exhibit at the museum is a 1930’s racecar, which roared around the county fairgrounds, complemented with a photograph gallery of the first race at the Hickory Motor Speedway, in 1951.

Website: Catawba County Museum of History
Location: Newton NC
Distance: 1 hour and 15 minutes from Asheville
Address: 30 North College Street, Newton NC 28658
Telephone: 828-465-0383
Hours: Wednesday -Saturday 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., Sunday 1:30 - 4:30 p.m.
Fees: None
Allow: 1-2 hours
Nearby: Catawba Science Center, Harper House/Hickory History Center, Hickory Museum of Art, Hiddenite Center, Historic Murray's Mill, Historic Newton NC Depot
Directions: From Asheville take I-40 East towards Statesville. Take Exit 130 toward Old US 70. Turn left at West 1st Street, take the 2nd right onto 1st Avenue South. Continue onto North Main Avenue, and turn left at East 1st Street. Take the 1st right onto North College Avenue in Newton.