Gastonia City Hall is located at 181 South Street, Gastonia, NC 28052.
Phone: 704‑866‑6719.
Neighborhoods
Beginnings [1]
Gastonia was incorporated in 1877 and replaced Dallas as the county seat in 1909. Historically, Gastonia's economy has been rooted in the textile industry, but during the last quarter of the twentieth century, other companies have established themselves in Gastonia and produce hosiery, machinery, electronic components and motor vehicle parts.
As early as the 1856, some families in the sparsely settled area that became Gastonia buried their loved ones in what became Oakwood Cemetery, but Gastonia's history, like the history of many towns in North Carolina, starts with the arrival of the railroad. In 1873, the Atlanta and Richmond Air Line, known after 1877 as the Atlanta and Charlotte Air-Line Railway, completed a line between Charlotte and Atlanta. Plans called for the corridor to pass through the original Gaston County seat of Dallas. Some residents eagerly awaited its arrival, but others,. fearing noise, dirt, and danger, forced the railroad company to build the line along a route four miles to the south where the railroad built a warehouse and one-room dwelling for the stationmaster near Shiloh Methodist Church, which served a widely-scattered agrarian population, and named it Gastonia Station. A blacksmith shop run by an African American named Prince Holland and a one-room saloon soon went up. A few years later, the Chester and Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad bisected Gaston County from north to south, passing through Dallas, which apparently by that time had recognized the economic benefits of a rail line. The Chester and Lenoir crossed the Atlanta and Charlotte line in the sparsely populated vicinity of Gastonia Station. During the New South era of the late 1800s, almost any location along the Atlanta and Charlotte rail corridor could have become a successful town, but a location with an intersecting railroad enjoyed even more advantages, and in 1877, the General Assembly chartered the town of Gastonia with just such a juncture at its heart.
Nearby Towns: Lowell City •