Place:Winston-Salem, Forsyth, North Carolina, United States

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Winston-Salem is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina, with a 2010 population of 229,617. Winston-Salem is the county seat and largest city of Forsyth County and the fourth-largest city in the state (though a 2011 estimate of Census Bureau estimate of 232,385 makes Winston-Salem fifth largest).

Winston-Salem is the second largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region and is home to the tallest office building in the region, 100 North Main Street, formerly the Wachovia Building and now known locally as the Wells Fargo Center. Winston-Salem is called the "Twin City" for its dual heritage and "City of the Arts and Innovation" for its dedication to fine arts and theater and technological research. "Camel City" is a reference to the city's historic involvement in the tobacco industry related to locally-based R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company's popular Camel cigarettes. Many locals refer to the city as "Winston" in informal speech.

In 2003, the previous Greensboro – Winston-Salem – High Point metropolitan statistical area (MSA) was re-defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, resulting in the formation of the Greensboro-High Point MSA and the Winston-Salem MSA. The official 2010 Census population for the Winston-Salem, North Carolina MSA was 477,717. The Greensboro – Winston-Salem – High Point combined statistical area (CSA), popularly referred to as the Piedmont Triad, had a population of 1,589,200 in 2010.

History

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Salem

The origin of the town of Salem dates to January 1753, when Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg, on behalf of the Moravian Church, selected a settlement site in the three forks of Muddy Creek. He called this area "die Wachau" (Latin form: Wachovia) named after the ancestral estate of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. The land, just short of , was subsequently purchased from John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville.

On November 17, 1753, the first settlers arrived at what would later become the town of Bethabara. This town, despite its rapid growth, was not designed to be the primary settlement on the tract. Some residents expanded to a nearby settlement called Bethania in 1759. Finally, lots were drawn to select among suitable sites for the location of a new town.

The town established on the chosen site was given the name of Salem (from the Hebrew word Shalom for "peace") chosen for it by the Moravians' late patron, Count Zinzendorf. On January 6, 1766, the first tree was felled for the building of Salem. Salem was a typical Moravian settlement congregation with the public buildings of the congregation grouped around a central square, today Salem Square. These included the church, a Brethren's House and a Sisters' House for the unmarried members of the Congregation, which owned all the property in town. For many years only members of the Moravian Church were permitted to live in the settlement. This practice had ended by the American Civil War. Many of the original buildings in the settlement have been restored or rebuilt and are now part of Old Salem Museums & Gardens. Salem was incorporated as a town in 1854. Salem Square and "God's Acre", the Moravian Graveyard, since 1772 are the site each Easter morning of the world-famous Moravian sunrise service. This service, sponsored by all the Moravian church parishes in the City, attracts thousands of worshippers each year and has earned the name of "the Easter City" for Winston-Salem.

Winston

In 1849, the Salem congregation sold land north of Salem to the newly formed Forsyth County for a county seat. The new town was called "the county town" or Salem until 1852 when it was named Winston for a local hero of the Revolutionary War, Joseph Winston. For its first two decades, Winston was a sleepy county town. In 1872, work began to connect the town to the North Carolina Railroad. That same year, Thomas Jethro Brown of Davie County rented a former livery stable and established the first tobacco warehouse in Winston. That same year, Pleasant Henderson Hanes, also of Davie, built his first tobacco factory a few feet from Brown's warehouse. In 1875, Richard Joshua Reynolds, of Patrick County, Virginia, built his first tobacco factory a few hundred feet from Hanes' factory. By the 1880s, there were almost 40 tobacco factories in the town of Winston. Hanes and Reynolds would compete fiercely for the next 25 years, each absorbing a number of the smaller manufacturers, until Hanes sold out to Reynolds in 1900 to begin a second career in textiles.

Winston-Salem

In the 1880s, the US Post Office began referring to the two towns as Winston-Salem. In 1899, after nearly a decade of contention, the United States Post Office Department established the Winston-Salem post office in Winston, with the former Salem office serving as a branch. After a referendum the towns were officially incorporated as "Winston-Salem" in 1913. The USPS Address Information System (AIS) does not recognize the hyphen.

The Reynolds family, namesake of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, played a large role in the history and public life of Winston-Salem. By the 1940s, 60% of Winston-Salem workers worked either for Reynolds or in the Hanes textile factories. The Reynolds company imported so much French cigarette paper and Turkish tobacco for Camel cigarettes that Winston-Salem was designated by the United States federal government as an official port of entry for the United States, despite the city being inland.^[1] Winston-Salem was the eighth-largest port of entry in the United States by 1916.^[1]

In 1917, the company bought of property in Winston-Salem and built 180 houses that it sold at cost to workers, to form a development called "Reynoldstown."^[1] By the time R.J. Reynolds died in 1918, his company owned 121 buildings in Winston-Salem.

In 1929, the Reynolds Building was completed in Winston-Salem. Designed by William F. Lamb from the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, the Reynolds Building is a 314 ft (96m) skyscraper that has 21 floors. When completed as the headquarters of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, it was the tallest building in the United States south of Baltimore, Maryland, and it was named the best building of the year by the American Institute of Architects. The building is well known for being the predecessor and prototype for the much larger Empire State Building that was built in 1931 in New York City. Every year the staff of the Empire State Building sends a Father's Day card to the staff at the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem to pay homage to its role as predecessor to the Empire State Building.

Notable early businesses

• In 1875, R J Reynolds founded R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company later famous for innovative branded products such as Prince Albert pipe tobacco (1907) and Camel cigarettes (1913). Other brands which it made famous are Winston, Salem, Doral, and Eclipse cigarettes. The Winston-Salem area is still the primary international manufacturing center for Reynolds brands of cigarettes, although employment is down from its peak of nearly 30,000 to under 3,000.

• Wachovia Bank and Trust was formed in 1911 by the merger of Wachovia National Bank (founded 1879) and Wachovia Loan and Trust (founded 1893). The company was purchased by First Union in 2001, which changed its name to Wachovia. Wachovia was purchased by Wells Fargo in 2009, and the Wachovia name was retired in 2011.

• In 1901, J. Wesley Hanes's Shamrock Hosiery Mills in Winston-Salem began making men's socks. Shortly afterward, his brother Pleasant Henderson Hanes founded the Hanes Knitting Company, which manufactured men's underwear. The two firms eventually merged to become the Hanes Corporation, now known as Hanesbrands, innovators in the textile industry.

• In 1906, the Bennett Bottling Company produced Bennett's Cola, a "Fine Carbonic Drink." The name was changed to Winston-Salem Bottling Works in 1915.

• Texas Pete, a popular hot sauce condiment, is manufactured by local firm T.W. Garner Foods.

• In 1934, Malcolm Purcell McLean formed McLean Trucking Co. The firm benefited from the tobacco and textile industry headquartered in Winston-Salem, and became the second largest trucking firm in the nation.

• In 1937, Krispy Kreme opened its first doughnut shop on South Main Street.

• In 1929 Quality Oil Company was organized in December 1929, initially to launch a distributorship for the then little known Shell Oil Company.

• In 1948, Piedmont Airlines was formed out of the old Camel City Flying Service. The airline was based at Smith Reynolds Airport in Winston-Salem but marked its first commercial flight out of Wilmington, North Carolina on February 20, 1948. Piedmont grew to become one of the top airlines in the country before its purchase by USAir (now US Airways) in 1987. US Airways maintains a reservation center in the old Piedmont Reservations office.

• In 1928 Miller's Clothing Store was opened by Mrs. Henry Miller. Miller's Variety Store still operates at the same location at 622 North Trade Street. Miller's was the first store in Winston-Salem to offer bell bottoms in the area in the 1960s. Also was listed by Playboy magazine in 1968 as a popular place to shop.

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