In class, it doesn’t take me three weeks to conduct a quiz. But here in the Focus world (and given my commenting on everything) it does. Partially, I use the questions to help students understand the way to approach a multiple choice question. But I also get to talk history with the answers.
Question #9. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Catawba County was nationally known for what product?
Answer A: Piedmont Wagons
Answer B: Hickory Nuts
Answer C: Maiden Socks
Answer D: Catawba Dresses
Answer E: Dixie Boats
Photo: The answer to the bonus question. Where do you find this building?
Let’s start with the last answer first. If you are of a certain age, you know that there was indeed a Dixie Boat Works in Newton. That business did not go far enough back to be the correct answer to the question. The others are just variations on the correct answer which is of course, Piedmont Wagon. Some are tempted to say Hickory Nuts but that is just a joke and while Maiden Socks was meant as a tip of the hat to the town’s textile mill past, no company that I ever heard of has that name.
Question #10. Which Catawba County football team had an undefeated season and was never scored upon?
Answer A: Longview Kings
Answer B: Bunker Hill Bears
Answer C: Ridgeview Panthers
Answer D: Maiden Blue Devils
Answer E: Newton-Conover Red Devils
As far as I know, there has never been a team called the Longview Kings. All of the rest, including the right answer, are or were high schools. While I cannot explain why county teams have an affinity for devils of various colors, and both have sported successful teams, neither have attained the status of “Untouchable”. Same is true of Bunker Hill. This high school went out of business in 1966 but still holds the record for the most consecutive shutouts (14) in North Carolina High School Athletic Association history. Quite a feat to still be so dominant almost 60 years later.
Bonus Question: Which Catawba County college was chartered in 1958?
Answer A: Lenoir-Rhyne University
Answer B: Catawba College
Answer C: Clevenger College
Answer D: Concordia College
Answer E: Catawba Valley Community College
Just so you know, none of these schools are fictional. At one time or another, all have been legitimate sources of higher education, based in Catawba County. Clevenger was a business school and had campuses in North Wilkesboro, Lenoir, Statesville, as well as Hickory. Catawba College was lured from Newton to Salisbury in 1925, though you still have College Avenue in Newton to this day. LR is still where it started and Concordia lost much of its faculty when they went to Hickory to establish Highland College, which became Lenoir, then Lenoir-Rhyne. Concordia recovered only to see a devastating fire close the college permanently in 1835. You guessed it. The answer is the school in which those students were enrolled. During the 1950s, when the state of NC was seeking to expand knowledge, the Catawba County Industrial Ed Center evolved into Catawba Valley Technical Institute, the CVTC before coming under the name we now know it as.
So, how did you do. Feel smarter for knowing more about your county’s history. Yeah, me too.
