All About Winston-Salem, NC

Winston-Salem is the fifth-most populous city in North Carolina, with close to a quarter-million inhabitants, and it features the tallest office building in the region, Wells Fargo Center (formerly the Wachovia Building). Winston-Salem has been called the “Twin City” for its heritage as the cities of Winston and Salem, and it has been called “Camel City” for its historic involvement in the tobacco industry, but sometimes the locals just call it Winston.

Before the neighboring towns of Winston and Salem merged in 1913, they each had an interesting history. Salem dated back to January 1753, when Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg chose a settlement site on behalf of the Moravian Church. It took over a decade for the settlement to really get going.

Among the public buildings of the Moravian congregation were the church and a Brethren’s House and a Sisters’ House for unmarried members to live in. Salem was incorporated as a town in 1856. Thousands of Moravian worshippers come to Salem each year for their sunrise service on Easter morning.

Winston began as a piece of land north of Salem that the Salem congregation sold to the county for a county seat in 1849. It was eventually named after a local Revolutionary War hero, Joseph Winston. Railroads and tobacco factories came to Winston in 1868, and just over a decade later, there were 40 tobacco factories in town.

Smile Sensations Dental in Winston-Salem

Smile Sensations Dental is dedicated to doing what is best for each individual patient. We love serving patients in Winston-Salem, whether they just need a basic cleaning or something more involved like veneers or implants.

We’re just a nine-minute drive away from some real history in Winston-Salem: the Winkler Bakery, still operating out of the same building as when the Winkler family purchased it in 1807. The bakery is part of the Old Salem Museums & Gardens, an organization dedicated to preserving and restoring the town and gardens of Salem for future generations.

What We Love About Winston-Salem

To anyone new to the Winston-Salem area, there’s plenty to do and see in addition to Old Salem. You could visit the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, the Children’s Museum of Winston-Salem, or Kaleideum North if you’re a fan of museums. If you want to take in the sights, you could hike or bike the trails of Salem Lake, visit Quarry Park or Bethabara Park, or take a stroll through the Reynolda gardens. Don’t forget to gas up at at the Shell-shaped gas station built in 1930!