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Dallas
Main Street, Dallas,
NC,
USA
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North Carolina State
Historical Marker |
Marker Text: "Named for G.M. Dallas. First seat of Gaston County, 1846-1911; site of Gaston College, now extinct. Courthouse built 1848 is here." Gaston County was chiseled out of Lincoln County in December 1846. The same act that authorized the creation of Gaston County provided for the establishment of a county seat two miles from Long Creek Baptist Church. After some debate, it was named Dallas, after James K. Polk’s Vice President, George Mifflin Dallas. Jesse Holland, one of the first settlers of the community, donated seventy-five acres for the courthouse. Until the courthouse was completed, Holland offered the use of his home as the temporary court. By the fall of 1847, the courthouse was ready for use. The log structure was replaced by a brick courthouse in 1848, and the same year the county jail was built. Although the area had been receiving postal service as early as 1817, the Hayesville Post Office moved to Dallas in 1848 as well.
Built in 1852, the Hoffman House, a forty-four room hotel was one of the first businesses in Dallas. Among others were the Hoyle Tavern, The Farmer’s Motel, the White House, and Seltzer’s General Store. The Dallas Current, which later became the Gaston Current, was the community’s first newspaper in 1885. The first high school, Gaston Academy, was built in 1868 eventually becoming Gaston College. The co-ed facility supported by Lutheran churches closed its doors in 1905.
A popular vote in 1909 determined that the county seat would be moved from Dallas to Gastonia. The laying of Southern Railway tracks through Gastonia contributed to the decision. The courthouse officially moved on January 1, 1911. Today the old courthouse remains at the center of the Dallas Historic District. No longer the center of county government, the small but historic town until recently had seen little population growth.
References:
Kim Withers Brengle, The Architectual Heritage of Gaston County, North Carolina (1982)
Gastonia Gazette, February 21, 1955
Piper Peters Aheron, Gastonia and Gaston County, North Carolina (2001)
William S. Powell, North Carolina Gazetteer (1968)
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