Gaston County Museum

The Gaston County Museum is located in downtown Dallas, NC. The museum shows visitors both art and history from Gaston County and the region around it. The main building of the museum is the former Hoffman Hotel built in 1852. Dallas was the county seat during this time. The hotel housed many business leaders over the years before business and the county seat shifted to Gastonia. Period style rooms let visitors come and see what it would have been like to stay at the hotel in the late 1800s. The museum houses the largest collection of horse-drawn vehicles in the state of North Carolina in the Daniel Stowe Carriage House which is located behind the Hoffman Hotel. The collection includes sleighs, drays, buggies, and even an ice cream wagon. This ice cream wagon was on from C. Coletta Ice Cream Company, the company that later turned into the Gaston County institustion of Tony's Ice cream. The museum also has a permanent Carolina’s textile exhibit that shows the history of textile mills in the state and especially in Gaston County. Textile Exhibit shows visitors patent models of textile machinery from the Smithsonian and an original 1884 Edison dynamo. This machine was the first hydroelectric power generator in the South. This exhibit also features interactive videos that let the visitor hear descriptions about textile mills and mill villages. These videos explain board topics like North Carolina labor history and also smaller topics like sports and church in the mill villages. Local artists have many works displayed in the museum. These work can range from painting to pottery pieces. This is apart of many different rotating exhibits that display the history and the culture of Gaston County and the area around it. The museum offers tours throughout the museum and tours of historical Dallas, North Carolina. They work with local schools on educating the youth on the history of the area in which they live. The museum also provide tours of other historic places in Dallas, such as the Court House. Admission to the museum is free to the public. Anyone can come and learn the vast history of Gaston County, North Carolina.

Gaston County Museum. Gaston County Museum.  Accessed March 06, 2019. http://www.gastoncountymuseum.org/index.php.

Gaston County Museum. Visit Gaston.  Accessed March 06, 2019. http://visitgaston.org/gaston-county-museum.html..

History. Town of Dallas North Carolina.  Accessed March 06, 2019. http://www.dallasnc.net/page/history. 


Jane, Martha. The Arrowood Trail Thru the Mountains. Arrowood Pigeon Roost NC.  Accessed April 02, 2019. http://arrowoodpigeonroostnc.blogspot.com/2010/12/carmine-coletta-ice-cream-man.html. 

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