R. Gregg Cherry

Badin, NC

In 1913 a French firm, L'Aluminium Français, launched an ambitious hydroelectric and aluminum venture on the Yadkin River, damming the Narrows and laying out a company town. The town took the name of Adrien Badin, president of the American subsidiary, Southern Aluminum. The First World War disrupted French investment, and the works were soon sold to the American aluminum giant that would run them for generations.

Asheville, NC

Jimmie Rodgers, the "Singing Brakeman," lived in Asheville in 1927 and launched his musical career with radio broadcasts on WWNC, whose studio stood just west of this marker. A former railroad worker, he blended blues, folk, and mountain music into a new sound that made him one of the first stars of country music. His brief career ended with his death in 1933.

Asheboro, NC

This stretch of street once carried the Fayetteville-to-Salem plank road, a 129-mile timber-surfaced toll highway built between 1849 and 1854. Passing through Randolph County, it linked the Cape Fear trade to the Moravian settlements of the north-central Piedmont, letting loaded wagons roll over sawn boards instead of miring in clay.

Gastonia, NC

In 1929 workers at the Loray Mill in Gastonia walked off the job in one of the most violent labor confrontations of the era, a strike that left two people dead and hardened public opposition to unions across the state. The conflict became a defining moment in the history of Southern textile labor.