This evening, August 13, the Historical Association of Catawba County will celebrate a milestone. Ninety years ago, members from within the county got together to form an organization devoted to the idea of preserving history so generations like ours could learn from the long tradition of work/family/culture that has gone into making Catawba County the place it is today. Quite a remarkable feat.
In a year filled with historical remembrance, it seems natural that locally, the opportunity arises to value a community group whose job it is to recall and celebrate our collective past. Every day, the Historical Association works hard to preserve both stories and artifacts that reveal who we once were on our way to becoming who we are today.
Thursday night, the annual meeting of the Historical Association takes place in downtown Newton, in the courtroom (upstairs) of the 1924 Courthouse, its home since 1992. At 6:30, a celebration of the remarkable journey undertaken will begin, including updates on each of the sites maintained by the HACC and announcements of a variety of new projects underway.
Photo: The 1924 Courthouse on the Square in downtown Newton, headquarters for the Historical Association of Catawba County.
If you have been in downtown Hickory lately, you have seen some of the exciting changes. A substantial renovation of Harper House (Hickory History Center) is nearing completion with a new rock wall surrounding the 1887 Shuler Mansion presents the mansion as it was when it was first built. Plans to reopen the house for tours are coming soon. Harper House is a historical landmark noted as “one of the finest examples of Queen Anne architecture in the South.”
In addition, the HACC maintains several other sites including Murray’s Mill, home of the Harvest Folk Festival, Bunker Hill Covered Bridge, which has also gone through its own recent improvement, the History Museum, on the square in Newton, along with several historic cemeteries throughout the county.
How do they do it all? It takes dedication. Since the HACC is a grassroots organization and not a department of county government, the effort requires substantial dedication by the citizens of Catawba County. One of the best ways to get involved is to become a member, which is easy to do. Visit their website (catawbahistory.org) and see what all is going on. For example, you can see up close the “Revolutionary War Redcoat,” one of only several still available for view in the entire United States.
If you are reading this column then you are interested in history, right? What better time would there be to meet folks who share that interest than by coming out. There are plenty of ways to get involved and you get to hang out with like-minded folks, interested in the past and eager to learn from it. I hope to see you there at the 90th anniversary celebration and the annual meeting of the Historical Association of Catawba County on Thursday evening at 6:30pm in downtown Newton. It’s an event of historical proportions. And that’s no overstatement.
