![]() The 40-x-60-foot structure and the jail were to be completed within eighteen months after a contract was signed. The commissioners advertised for bids in newspapers, stating that the Catawba County Courthouse was to be constructed of brick, rough coated with cement, on a basement of granite. as commissioners to contract with a builder. The county court, in June 1845, appointed Burton Craig, H.H. Shuford received instructions to formulate plans for erecting public buildings. The following April, Jonas Bost, Joseph Bost, and George P. The court, in June 1844, appointed Jonas Bost, a local carpenter and farmer, as treasurer of public buildings. Plans for the public buildings developed during 18. Within a year the court hired David Setzer to build a temporary jail and sold lots to raise money for the construction of public buildings. Newton was located on Three Creek Road, which originated to the South and intersected Island Ford Road near the present site of Conover. The land lay in the heart of a productive agricultural area that produced primarily various grains and fruit. In April 1843, Mathias Setzer, Jacob Deal, and Jacob McGee deeded to Jonas Bost, chairman of Catawba's "select court" of five men, fifty-one acres to be used for the town of Newton. ![]() The county court soon fulfilled the objectives established by the General Assembly. The home of Mathias Barringer, near the center of the county, was to serve as a temporary courthouse. The act, which created Catawba from the northern section of Lincoln County, required the commissioners to select a site of at least fifty acres for the new town. The North Carolina General Assembly in 1842 authorized seven commissioners to establish Newton as the county seat of Catawba County. The significance of the North Main Avenue Historic District can best be understood as an integral part of Newton's overall development. Furthermore, the impressive houses that line North Main Avenue, which date from the mid-nineteenth century to recent times, reveal the neighborhood's continuing popularity among some of the city's most influential families. ![]() Main Avenue still serves as the principal link between the industrial section of the city, to the North, and the southern part of Newton, once the site of Catawba College. Nevertheless, the neighborhood also exhibits continuity. ![]() This growth - primarily a result of the town's role as a trading center for the outlying farming areas, railroad construction before and after the Civil War, the presence of Catawba College, and rapid development of the textile industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - changed Newton from a sleepy village into a significant commercial center. ![]() Its handsome residences, an abandoned hosiery mill, churches, and public school buildings reflect much of Newton's development since its creation in 1842 as Catawba County's seat of government. The chiefly residential North Main Avenue Historic District, incorporating a significant segment of North Main Avenue and portions of ten blocks to the west of this important thoroughfare, represents an interesting paradox. Portions of the content on this web page were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document. The North Main Avenue Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. ![]()
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