Gastonia Tutors

About Gastonia

About a half hour from downtown Charlotte, Gastonia, North Carolina is the seat of Gaston County and the second largest suburb in the metropolitan area. Originally the home of the Catawba and Cherokee Native Americans, the land which would become Gastonia saw German, Dutch, English, Scottish and Irish immigrants trickle into the region in the middle of the 18th century. Early conflict with European settlers prompted the Cherokee to abandon the area and the Catawba to move south to a reservation. Because of smallpox, the Catawba, who had once numbered over 100,000, dwindled to only about 200 individuals by the middle of the 1800’s. Like most of the Charlotte area, economic prosperity arrived with the establishment of the first cotton mills in Gastonia in the 1840’s. Gaston County and Gastonia were named after Congressman and North Carolina Supreme Court Justice William Gaston. An early Federalist and proponent of a strong central government in Washington D.C. Gaston was repeatedly called on to represent North Carolinians in the state legislature, as a congressman and on the bench. As a judge in the 1830’s he sided with abolitionists in deciding that a slave had the right to defend himself against a master who was attacking him unjustly. Gaston’s legacy included securing the charter for Georgetown University, rulings in favor of eliminating slavery and his composition of the state song, “The Old North State.”

Gastonia continued to prosper during the last half of the 1800’s and the beginning of the 1900’s primarily due to textile manufacturing. During World War I the mills In Gaston County thrived with the production of uniforms for the United States military. Labor issues, however, arose in the 1920’s culminating with the Loray Mill strike in 1929. Dissatisfied with low wages and poor working conditions, leaders of the NTWU (National Textile Workers Union) urged workers to walk off their jobs, prompting mill owners to evict families from their company owned homes. One striker and the county’s sheriff were killed during the strike which mostly failed in improving worker’s lives but was a landmark in the history of the labor movement. Despite the upheaval, the textile industry is still essential to Gastonia’s economy. In fact, the Firestone Fibers and Textile plant in Gastonia is among the nation’s largest.

It’s likely that a Gastonia tutor will keep you ahead of the academic curve so you can take some time away from the books to enjoy the many things to do in Gastonia and the Charlotte metropolitan area. Founded in 1961 by Rudolf “Bud” Schiele as a place to display his vast collection of animal specimens, the Schiele Museum of Natural History and Planeterium in Gastonia offers a variety of permanent and rotating exhibits with a large collection of artifacts. The Henry Hall of the American Indian features weapons, ornaments, tools and interpretive displays about the history of the major tribal groups in North America. The museum has several outdoor exhibits such as the Memorial Wildlife Garden, a “wildlife oasis” where visitors can enjoy the serenity of nature.

On Gastonia’s southwestern edge, Crowders Mountain State Park is over 5,000 acres with two mountain peaks, 1,600-foot Crowders Mountain and the 1,700-foot Pinnacle. The park has a visitors’ center and approximately 20 miles of hiking trails. Many of the trails are labeled “strenuous” because they climb the steep sides of the two mountains. The Ridgeline Trail is the longest at over six miles and eventually takes hikers to peak of The Pinnacle. Recently the park was connected to its southern neighbor, Kings Mountain State Park.