The Coffee Pot
The Old Salem community (and Winston-Salem as a whole) is popularly represented by a tin coffee pot, originally built by Moravian brothers, Samuel and Julius Mickey, in 1858 as an advertisement for their tinsmith shop. Traditionally said to hold "740 gallons of coffee", it was originally located at the intersection of Belews Street and Main Street in front of his shop. That location was the border between Winston and Salem before the two towns merged. When the cities merged in 1913, it came to symbolize the joining of the two communities.
The pot was knocked down numerous times by traffic. Finally in 1920, after the pot was struck again by an out-of-control car and knocked from its spot, the city forced the coffee pot's removal from its place on the street for violating advertising laws and for traffic safety reasons. An outcry from residents, led by Wachovia Historical Society head Henry Fries and Moravian Bishop Edward Rondthaler, had it restored, but placed in a much safer location, further back from the road. The pot was finally moved for good in 1959 when Interstate 40 went through the location at Belews and Main. The Coffee Pot is owned by the City and is located at the north end of Old Salem at a traffic island formed by Old Salem Road, Main Street and Brookstown Avenue.
Read more about this topic: Old Salem
Famous quotes containing the words coffee pot, coffee and/or pot:
“Mrs. Small went to the kitchen for her pocketbook
And came back to the living room with a peculiar look
And the coffee pot.
Pocketbook. Pot.
Pot. Pocketbook.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“you who put gum in my coffee cup
and worms in my Jell-O, you who let me pretend
you were daddy of the poets, witchman, you stand
for all, for all the bad dead, a Salvation Army Band
who plays for no one. I am cement. The bird in me is blind
as I knife out your name and all your dead kind.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering- pot and pruning-knife.”
—Margaret Fuller (1810–1850)