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.
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Famous quotes containing the words coffee pot, coffee and/or pot:
“The chuck wagon carries the food and utensils for the range kitchen. Man-at-the-pot is the first buckaroo to pick up the coffee pot when out with the chuck wagons. It becomes his duty to pour the coffee for the outfit. “Come and get her before I throw her out” is the time honored mess call.”
—Administration in the State of Neva, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I worked as a waitress till I was fired because I dumped a cup of hot coffee in the lap of a half-drunk guy who was pinching my butt.”
—Juli Loesch (b. c. 1953)
“One could love reason like an Encyclopaedist and still be favorably inclined toward mysticism. Throughout the ages, up to the eyes of van Gogh, when he looked at a coffee pot or a garden path, mysticism has expanded the human realm by all sorts of threshold experiences.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)