Conover: Furniture Town in the Catawba Foothills

Conover sits in the western Piedmont of North Carolina in Catawba County, part of the cluster of Piedmont towns, along with Hickory and Newton, that built one of the most concentrated furniture manufacturing regions in the world. The hardwood forests of the surrounding hills supplied the raw material; the swift creeks powered the early mills; and the railroad connections that arrived in the late eighteen hundreds moved finished goods to markets across the country.

For most of the twentieth century, furniture production anchored the local economy. The Sherrill Furniture Company, founded in the county in nineteen forty-five, has operated here for more than seven decades making custom upholstered furniture. The broader Hickory furniture district at one point supplied a significant share of all the furniture sold in the United States.

The industry has contracted since the nineteen nineties as manufacturing shifted overseas, but Conover and its neighbors have been working to adapt, retaining manufacturing roots while attracting new industries to the old factory footprints.