Siouan-speaking tribes such as the
Cheraw and the
Keyauwee Indians inhabited the area. Followers of the
Moravian Church had interacted with
Cherokees. The city of Winston-Salem is a product of the merging of the two neighboring towns of Winston and Salem in 1913.
History of Salem , built in 1788, is part of the
Bethabara Historic District. The origin of the town of Salem dates to 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) 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 "Shalom", Hebrew meaning "Peace", after the Canaanite city mentioned in the
Book of Genesis) 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 December 1856. Salem Square and
God's Acre Cemetery, the Moravian graveyard, have been the site of the Moravian
sunrise service each
Easter morning since 1772. This service, sponsored by all the Moravian church parishes in the city, attracts thousands of worshipers each year, some from overseas.
History of 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 1851, when it was renamed Winston for a local hero of the
Revolutionary War,
Joseph Winston. For its first two decades, Winston was a sleepy community. In 1868, work began by Salem and Winston business leaders to connect the town to the
North Carolina Railroad. By the 1880s, there were many different tobacco factories in the town, with notable ones owned by Pleasant Hanes and
R.J. Reynolds. Pleasant Hanes would later go on to found
Hanes (formerly called Shamrock Knitting Mills) in 1900.
Merger of Winston-Salem Robert Gray, as a featured speaker at the 1876 centennial celebration, was the first to mention the two towns as one. In the 1880s, the US Post Office began referring to the two towns together 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
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. 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 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, which was built in 1931 in New York City. In 1892,
Simon Green Atkins founded Slater Industrial Academy, which later became
Winston-Salem State University, a public
HBCU. In 1956, Wake Forest College, now known as
Wake Forest University, moved to Winston-Salem from its original location in
Wake Forest, North Carolina. Winston-Salem was officially dubbed the "City of Arts and Innovation" in 2014. On January 31, 2022, a major fire broke out at the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant in North Winston-Salem. The facility contained over 600 tons of
ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive chemical, prompting the evacuation of approximately 6,500 residents from 2,500 homes within a one-mile radius.
Notable early businesses • In 1799, the
C. Winkler Bakery, noted for its
Moravian cookies, was commissioned, and in 1807, the congregation brought in
Christian Winkler of Pennsylvania to operate the bakery; his family owned and operated the business until 1929. It continues to operate today as part of
Old Salem. • In 1875, R. J. Reynolds founded
R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, later famous for branded products such as Prince Albert pipe tobacco (1907) and
Camel cigarettes (1913). Other brands that 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. • In 1901,
J. Wesley Hanes' Shamrock Hosiery Mills in Winston-Salem began making men's socks. Shortly afterward, his brother Pleasant Henderson Hanes founded the
P.H. Hanes Knitting Company, which manufactured men's underwear. The two firms eventually merged to become the Hanes Corporation, now known as
Hanesbrands, manufacturing
textiles. • 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. • In 1911,
Wachovia Bank and Trust was formed by the merger of Wachovia National Bank (founded in 1879 by James Alexander Gray and William Lemly) 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 1928, Miller's Clothing Store was opened by Mrs. Henry Miller. Miller's Variety Store operated at the same location at 622 North Trade Street until closing at the end of 2016. Miller's was the first store in Winston-Salem to offer
bell-bottoms in the area in the 1960s. Miller's was listed by
Playboy magazine in 1968 as a popular place to shop. • In 1929, the local T.W. Garner Foods introduced
Texas Pete, a popular hot sauce. • In 1929, Quality Oil Company was organized in December 1929, initially to launch a distributorship for the then-little-known
Shell Oil Company. • 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 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 (later
US Airways, merged with
American Airlines in 2015) in 1987. American Airlines maintains a reservation center in the old Piedmont reservations office. ==Geography==