Hickory

Located primarily in Catawba County, North Carolina, with parts of it in Burke and Caldwell Counties, respectively, Hickory is a small city of about 40,000 residents. What began as a small tavern of logs built under a huge hickory tree in the 1850s soon turned into a town. A town of many North Carolina firsts, it was the first to install electric lights in 1888 and the first to install a complete sewage system about 15 years later. Today, Hickory is home to one of the oldest furniture manufacturers in the U.S. and has been named an “All-America City” three times, an honor only awarded to ten American cities at a time.