Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina

Mar 26, 2016 Sat0

Laurie and I like riding our Gold Wing motorcycle. But it is easy to get into a rut and just ride the same roads. So to force ourselves to ride to places we would not normally visit we made a goal to visit and photograph all 100 North Carolina courthouses within 1 year.

As usual, we got a little behind. We started in July 2015 and finished 99 out of 100 by June 2018. The last courthouse was in our home county of Wake and it took us until Feb 2021 to get that final one. But we made it! This blog is about one of those visits.

Many NC courthouses were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The nomination form has some interesting facts about the various courthouse styles over the years.






Courthouse Information


Wikipedia says the following about the courthouse:

Lincoln County Courthouse is a historic courthouse building located at Lincolnton, Lincoln County, North Carolina. It was designed by noted Raleigh architect James A. Salter and built in 1921. It is three-story, ashlar stone, Classical Revival style building. It has a taller central section flanked by flat roofed wings, matching pedimented hexastyle Doric order porticoes on the front and rear of the center section, and a Doric frieze along its sides.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It is located in the Lincolnton Commercial Historic District.






County Information


The North Carolina History Project lists the following information for this county:

A few years after the American Revolution, the legislature divided Tryon County into two separate counties. William Tryon was a notorious royal governor that citizens considered a tyrant because of his suppression of colonial independence. Therefore, in 1779, Lincoln County was derived from Tryon, and a few years later Lincolnton, the county seat, was founded. The county received its name in honor of General Benjamin Lincoln. After Lord Cornwallis's surrender, George Washington commissioned General Benjamin Lincoln to accept the British commander's sword at Yorktown.

The first county commissioners were ordered to find a suitable place to build a courthouse and prison. However, they were inept in their duties, and in 1782 and 1784 the legislature picked new commissioners who finally established Lincolnton in the county. During the early 1800s, the county flourished due to the increase in westward immigration, and it soon became one of the most populated areas in the state. In 1815, the first cotton mill in the South, the Schenck-Warlick Mill, was constructed near Lincolnton. Also, during the early to mid-nineteenth century, Lincoln County became the number one leader in the iron works industry of North Carolina. However, as the legislature began to annex the county in the 1840s the iron industry dwindled. Some of the furnaces and iron forges still exist to this day.

Although Lincoln enjoyed economic growth in the early 1800s, the North Carolina General Assembly decreased its size substantially during the 1840s. Cleveland, Catawba, and Gaston counties were all culled out of Lincoln, and with these counties also went numerous mills and farms. However, beginning in the mid-twentieth century, new businesses and factories stimulated the county's economy.

There are notable historical landmarks in Lincoln County. The Vesuvius Furnace, the Andrew Loretz House (the oldest brick structure in Lincoln County), and Woodside are all late eighteenth century structures within the area. Also, there are numerous structures from the 1800s in Lincoln County. Ingleside (1817) is an antebellum mansion that was designed by the famed architect, Benjamin Latrobe. The Pleasant Retreat Academy (c. 1820) remains as one of the last antebellum buildings in North Carolina. Texas governor James Henderson, North Carolina governor William A. Graham, and Georgia governor Hoke Smith along with two major generals, Robert Hoke and Stephen Ramsour, were all students at the Pleasant Retreat Academy.

Triangle, Iron Station, Godsonville, Reepsville, Denver, Lowesville, Boger City, Toluca, and Vale are other townships in Lincoln. A section of Lincoln's Catawba River was dammed in the 1950s and 1960s, creating Lake Norman, North Carolina's largest man-made lake.






Our Experience


Laurie got a nice photo of a whimsical bench. There was also a monument to a Medal of Honor recipient. We have only seen a couple of those.

Mar 26, 2016 Sat 11:55:07 AM EDT Altitude: 846 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 11:55:11 AM EDT Altitude: 868 ft Camera: iPhone 5sDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 11:56:15 AM EDT Altitude: 846 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 11:56:46 AM EDT Altitude: 846 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 11:57:14 AM EDT Altitude: 846 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 11:57:58 AM EDT
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 11:58:27 AM EDT Altitude: 842 ft Camera: iPhone 5sDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 11:59:21 AM EDT Altitude: 876 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 12:00:15 PM EDT Altitude: 876 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 12:00:36 PM EDT Altitude: 876 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
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Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina
Mar 26, 2016 Sat 12:03:16 PM EDT Altitude: 876 ft Camera: X100TDisplay on Google Map
Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincolnton, North Carolina



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Cleveland County Courthouse in Shelby, North Carolina




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