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High
Point's Furniture Companies
High Point and furniture – it is difficult to think of
one without thinking of the other. Furniture and its
related industries fuel our economy, and the city dances
to the rhythms of its markets. Beginning
with the earliest days of industrial manufacture in the
South following the Civil War, High Point (so named
because it was the highest point on the North Carolina
Railroad when it was established in 1859) has played a
vital role in the history of furniture in North
Carolina, and indeed the entire region, country, and now
the world. After the turn of the 20th
century, the furniture industry in North Carolina grew
rapidly.
High Point became the center of furniture manufacturing
and marketing in the South, and eventually in the entire
country. Following World War II, an estimated 60% of all
furniture made in America was produced within a 150-mile
radius of High Point, and the city’s weeklong
semi-annual furniture markets have become the major
international wholesale markets for the industry.
The journey from a few small family-owned furniture
factories, using abundant local timber supplies and
hardworking labor from abandoned tobacco farms, to a
major manufacturing and distribution center is a local
story with national impact. It is a story that has
touched every American. The following list, which
features approximately 750 furniture companies that have
been identified with High Point, shows just how
important furniture manufacturing has been to the growth
of the city.
Joe Exum Brown is a tireless researcher with an abiding
interest in the industry and history of High Point. In
this
file, we present an extensive list he
compiled of furniture companies that are documented to
have operated in High Point and nearby since the
furniture industry began here in the late 1880s. In his
introduction to the list he tells about the sources he
consulted. He concluded his research on this topic in
2003 by checking the then current telephone directory
for each company he believed to be active. Although
there have been changes since 2003, no one has updated
Brown’s list.
Note that this list is presented to you as Joe Brown
finished it, without corrections of spellings or
listings. If you have information to add or change,
please contact the High Point Museum through our
contact page |
