Gastonia sits just west of Charlotte in Gaston County, an area settled by German and Scotch-Irish pioneers along the Catawba and South Fork Rivers in the late 1700s. The Battle of Kings Mountain, a turning point in the Revolutionary War, was fought about 20 miles away.
Gaston County was once one of the biggest textile manufacturing areas in the United States. That industry has largely moved on, but the county's history is well preserved at the Gaston County Museum of Art and History near the old courthouse square in Dallas. The Downtown Gastonia Historic District preserves the commercial core from those boom years, and the Loray Mill — scene of the notorious 1929 labor strike — still dominates the west side of town.
Do not miss ice cream at Tony's Ice Cream on East Franklin Boulevard — the restaurant looks much as it did in the 1940s. For dinner, the local "fish camps" are a Gaston County tradition: Graham's, Stowe's, and North Star all serve generous portions of fried fish, fries, and hushpuppies at modest prices.
The American Military Museum on West Second Avenue houses uniforms and artifacts from every war since the Civil War. The Schiele Museum of Natural History east of downtown has excellent regional natural history and Native American exhibits. Belmont Abbey and Basilica nearby offers walking tours of its historic campus and church, a Minor Basilica with stained-glass windows that won a gold prize at the 1893 Columbian Exposition.