Public Radio for the Piedmont and High Country
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

High Point Museum creates new historic Highland Mills neighborhood walking tour

Highland Mill Village was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. Photograph courtesy of High Point Museum.

Highland Mill Village was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. Photograph courtesy of High Point Museum.

The High Point Museum is spotlighting the city’s historic Highland Mills neighborhood in a new walking tour.

The museum’s app offers a variety of guided tours from Washington Street, which was once the center of High Point’s Black life in the decades following the Civil War, to the Hedgecock Farm, a family-run self-sufficient tobacco farm, something that was once a common sight all across Guilford County.

The latest walking tour is Highland Mills, which according to the museum is one of the best-preserved mill villages in North Carolina. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places nearly a decade ago. The self-sustaining neighborhood community and cotton mill were the brainchild of industrialists J.H. Adams and J.H. Millis, who launched the project in 1913.

High Point Museum Communications Coordinator Tamara Vaughan helped produce the tour. She says it involves the voices of residents past and present.

"And so they have all of these very distinct memories," says Vaughan. "So, we’re able to add all of that into the tour. As you’re listening to the audio, it will change and you’ll get to hear an actual voice of someone who is recounting a story."

Stories of mill strikes, memorable church services, and the old Hilltop Grocery store are scattered throughout the pre-recorded guided walking tour. The roughly one-mile loop begins on Mill Avenue and takes about 30 minutes to complete. In addition to audio and interviews, the tour features images and highlights from the museum collection.

Before his arrival in the Triad, David had already established himself as a fixture in the Austin, Texas arts scene as a radio host for Classical 89.5 KMFA. During his tenure there, he produced and hosted hundreds of programs including Mind Your Music, The Basics and T.G.I.F. Thank Goodness, It's Familiar, which each won international awards in the Fine Arts Radio Competition. As a radio journalist with 88.5 WFDD, his features have been recognized by the Associated Press, Public Radio News Directors Inc., Catholic Academy of Communication Professionals, and Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas. David has written and produced national stories for NPR, KUSC and CPRN in Los Angeles and conducted interviews for Minnesota Public Radio's Weekend America.

Support quality journalism, like the story above,
with your gift right now.

Donate