Catawba County
The History of Hickory, North Carolina
Hickory has made two things in quantity for over a century — furniture and socks — and did one extraordinary thing in a single summer that people still talk about.
Hickory Tavern
Hickory Tavern was established in the 1850s by Henry Robinson, under a hickory tree near a stagecoach junction. That origin rests on the city’s own account and no archival corroboration was found for this article, so take the tree as tradition and the location as fact.
The corporate history is unusually stepwise. A first charter came on December 12, 1863. The Town of Hickory Tavern was established in January 1870. The name was shortened to the Town of Hickory in 1873. It became the City of Hickory in 1889. Many secondary sources collapse all that into one incorporation date; they should not.
The original charter set the town limits centered on the depot of the Western North Carolina Railroad, which was pushing west from Salisbury toward Morganton and eventually Asheville. Everything here grew from that depot.
Furniture
North Carolina’s furniture industry took hold in the Piedmont for practical reasons: improved rail transport, large stands of hardwood, and an agricultural crisis in the 1890s that pushed farm labor into the towns. National mail-order houses like Sears, Roebuck then bought in volume and gave the output nationwide distribution.
By 1900 forty-four furniture factories operated in High Point and the surrounding towns, a list that already included Hickory. The Hickory Furniture Company, managed by George W. Hall at twenty-eight, is named as the town’s first factory, with Martin Furniture following less than a year later; sources do not agree on a firm founding date. The local advantage was lumber and the trade routes along the Catawba valley rivers, which drew craftsmen and designers. Factories multiplied through the 1920s and 1930s. The Southern Furniture Market, started about 1960 by Leroy Lail, became the Hickory Furniture Mart in 1985.
Two claims worth resisting
“Furniture Capital of the World” is claimed for Hickory and, more often, for High Point. It is a marketing phrase, not a verifiable title.
The figures often quoted — that over half the nation’s furniture is made within two hundred miles, or that a given share of the world’s fiber-optic cable is made near Hickory — could not be traced to any industry or government source.
Hosiery
The hosiery industry began here in 1906 with the Hickory Hosiery Mill, founded by J. A. Cline and the Reverend W. P. Cline. By 1925 only four mills were operating. Then it took off: about fifty-five mills and four thousand workers by 1953, and eighty-nine mills at peak capacity in 1962, falling back to fifty-two by 1980.
Whisnant Hosiery Mills, founded in 1929, had 525 workers by 1938 and a daily capacity of 3,500 dozen pairs of men’s hose; its last addition in 1966 doubled the plant. Elliott Hosiery Mills was the largest in town at 800 employees. By 1965 North Carolina led the nation in hosiery with roughly four hundred mills statewide, and Hickory was one of the Piedmont’s major centers, with printers, box makers and yarn spinners grown up around it.
The Miracle of Hickory
On June 1, 1944 the first polio case of the season was diagnosed here. Within twenty-four hours six cases had been identified in the county and sixty-eight across the region. The epidemic centered on the Catawba valley.
The response is what the state marker commemorates. The decision to build an emergency hospital was taken at noon on a Wednesday and the first patients were admitted on Saturday morning — about fifty-four hours later, though one official state source says fifty-five. The initial facility was a stone building that had been a summer camp, with Army hospital tents and frame structures added. Popular accounts give the camp a name; it could not be confirmed, so this article does not repeat it.
The March of Dimes supplied doctors and more than half a million dollars. The American Red Cross recruited several hundred nurses. Research teams came from Yale, Johns Hopkins and Bowman Gray. Treatment validated Sister Elizabeth Kenny’s approach of heat, massage and hydrotherapy, alongside iron lungs. Accounts of the number treated differ: NCpedia says over five hundred, the state marker essay says 454 over nine months, most from North Carolina with some from Virginia and South Carolina.
The hospital closed on March 5, 1945, when the last patients were moved to Charlotte in a widely publicized motorcade. It drew national coverage including a Paramount documentary feature.
Lenoir-Rhyne
Lenoir-Rhyne opened in Hickory in 1891 as Highland College, founded by four Lutheran pastors and educators — Andrew L. Crouse, Robert A. Yoder, William P. Cline and Jason C. Moser — with sixty-three students and eight faculty, growing to 149 by the end of the year. It was renamed Lenoir College in January 1892 for Walter Waightstill Lenoir, a Wilkes County lawyer who left the fifty-six-acre campus in his will for the purpose. The Rhyne name was added for the textile manufacturer and philanthropist Daniel Efird Rhyne; sources date that change to 1923 or 1924. It enrolls more than 2,600 students today.
Hickory today
Hickory counted 43,490 people at the 2020 census and describes itself as a regional hub for over 365,000. It has four National Register historic districts — Kenworth (1985), Oakwood (1986), Claremont High School (1986) and Hickory Southwest Downtown (2005) — with roughly 530 properties listed in total when districts and individual listings are combined.
Fiber optics is now a major local industry. In March 2023 CommScope and Corning announced a combined investment of nearly $550 million in North Carolina fiber manufacturing, including an expansion at CommScope’s Catawba facility and a new Corning campus near Hickory. The county’s wider story is in the history of Catawba County.
Hickory, year by year
Hickory has been chartered more than once, and the sequence matters: a single “incorporated in” date for this town is always wrong.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1850s | Henry Robinson’s Hickory Tavern stands beneath a hickory tree near a stagecoach junction |
| December 12, 1863 | A first charter |
| January 1870 | The Town of Hickory Tavern is established, its corporate limits drawn around the Western North Carolina Railroad depot |
| 1873 | The name is shortened to the Town of Hickory |
| 1889 | It becomes the City of Hickory |
| 1891 | Highland College opens with 63 students and eight faculty, growing to 149 by year’s end; renamed Lenoir College in January 1892 for Walter Waightstill Lenoir, who left the campus land in his will |
| 1906 | The Hickory Hosiery Mill, founded by J. A. Cline and the Reverend W. P. Cline, starts the town’s hosiery industry |
| early 1900s | The Hickory Furniture Company, the town’s first furniture factory, opens under George W. Hall at twenty-eight |
| June 1, 1944 | The first polio case is diagnosed; within a day six are found in the county and 68 in the region |
| June 1944 | An emergency hospital is built, equipped and staffed in roughly 54 hours, on the site of a former summer camp |
| March 5, 1945 | The emergency hospital closes and the last patients are moved to Charlotte |
| 1962 | Hosiery peaks in Hickory at 89 mills |
| 2023 | Corning and CommScope announce a combined investment of nearly $550 million in North Carolina fiber-optic manufacturing |
Three superlatives commonly attached to Hickory are left out of this article because none could be traced to an industry or government source: that Hickory is the furniture capital of the world (High Point makes the same claim), that roughly sixty percent of the furniture in American homes comes from North Carolina makers, and that some large share of the world’s fiber-optic cable is manufactured here. The verifiable statement is the one above: two major manufacturers operate here and announced nearly $550 million in investment in March 2023. Accounts of the emergency hospital also differ — 54 hours against 55, and “over 500” patients against 454 over nine months.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Hickory called Hickory?
From Hickory Tavern, established in the 1850s by Henry Robinson beneath a hickory tree near a stagecoach junction. The town shortened the name in 1873.
When was Hickory incorporated?
In stages: a first charter on December 12, 1863, the Town of Hickory Tavern in January 1870, the Town of Hickory in 1873, and the City of Hickory in 1889.
What was the Miracle of Hickory?
An emergency polio hospital built, equipped and staffed in roughly fifty-four hours in June 1944, during an epidemic centered on the Catawba valley. It closed in March 1945.
How big was the hosiery industry in Hickory?
It peaked at eighty-nine mills in 1962, from four in 1925, and had fallen to fifty-two by 1980. North Carolina led the nation in hosiery by 1965.
What is Lenoir-Rhyne University?
A Lutheran-founded college that opened in Hickory in 1891 as Highland College, became Lenoir College in 1892, and took the Lenoir-Rhyne name in the early 1920s.
Sources for this article
Catawba valley families
Adkins Law serves families across the Catawba valley and the Charlotte region, with a second office at Adkins & Purkey in Locust.
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This article is local history, offered for general interest. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Historical accounts are drawn from the sources listed above; where sources disagree, that is noted in the text. For advice about your own situation, speak with a licensed North Carolina attorney.