african-american communities. we can start to see the migrations that are standard in the united states with urban centers and we can start to see why and how those were related to moravian issues. transfer answer your question, what is my favorite story? the anticipation of all the other stories of aspiration that are going to come out of the hidden town project. weekend,: this is joiningistory tv" our spectrum cable partners to showcase the history of winston-salem, north carolina. to learn more about the cities on our current tour, visit www.c-span.org. we continue now with our look at the history of winston-salem. >> there is a real sense of history in this town, for lots of people who have been here a while.

we have been here a long time and been a successful city for a long time. announcer: while in winston-salem we took a driving tour of the city with retired radio personality, j r snyder. >> thank you for showing us around winston-salem today. >> i am flattered. >> where are we going first? >> the arts district. interestingan history of being a factory town for a long time and then write up through here, without any upistance -- and then right through here without any assistance started being an artists colony. galleries, restaurants down here. from what wased just people wanting to have a place to display what they did. originally this was trade street, factories up and down through here during the time of the furniture market. >> winston-salem was built on tobacco? >> it was.

winston specifically was. starting in the 1880's. because, there is farmland around here. there were a number of tobacco factories here. we know about r.j. reynolds but there were lots of people in tobacco before that in the 1880's. mainly plug tobacco. chewing tobacco, before they started making cigarettes out of it. when reynolds came here, he eye for thehilan business part. he could see the potential. >> we are seeing the r.j. reynolds tobacco company factory writer. -- thaty power plants whole area has been turned into this fabulous facility. the school of medicine with a trained doctors is down there. >> from tobacco to health? >> the biggest employer in

winston-salem is the health industry. >> when did that change happen? >> it started happening in the 80's and 90's. they came into its own starting in 2000 when this area started really growing here. before that, downtown was dead. 5:30, you could bowl on main street if you want to do. but now there are a lot of people that live downtown in winston-salem. there are lots of businesses and a lot of reasons to be down here all the time. >> what you think it turned around? what was the catalyst for that? >> the people said here are these buildings, let's do something with them rather than tearing it down. some city leaders had a great deal to do with the growth of this. >> would this have been

considered old winston? >> old winston. >> the city is a hyphenated city. when did the two cities come together, and how did it start? >> the moravians came from pennsylvania in the 1750's, and they founded a community here, salem, which we now call old salem, as a church town. the church controlled everything in salem. in the 1840's, they decided they were going to make this a separate county. , the moravian religion, which controlled the town did not want the courthouse there because court brings pretty rowdy people. price, sold at a prime the land just of the north of them. that became winston. in 1913, they merged. moreat time, winston was

dynamic and thriving compared to salem. wentis now looks like we back in time. where are we now? >> this is the completely reconstructed town of old salem. these are the original buildings from original plans. >> is there still a moravian population here? >> yes, several moravian churches. that yellow house was a first town hall that people and say to him -- had in salem. hall was upstairs and the jail was downstairs. they used that until 1912. and this was the place where women sewed uniforms before the american civil war. this is the winkler bakery, where they continued to bake some things like they did. we are going to go in. >> we are back in the car, because we got -- moravian sugar cakes, a traditional dish made in old salem. >> we're going to try it.

>> too bad we are not on smell of vision. >> the car smells amazing. >> there are several places to get it, but this is the original home of it. this is one of the must stops in salem. the coffee pot is an interesting story also. that was originally the symbol shop,kki 10 shop -- tin and people knew you could get a coffee pot up there. when they build 40 through here, they moved it down here. aboutare a lot of stories coffee being served for the moravian sunrise service and soldiers hiding in it, but none of that is true. it has been the symbol of hospitality for a long time. >> we have a belly full of treats, where should we go? >> we should see where the rich people used to live. this is the reynold area. this started out as a dirt road,

and when r.j. reynolds wife decided she did not want to live in her downtown home, she built -- she was the driving force -- build this estate, the initial estate was over 1000 acres. this is part of the estate as it exists on the right, and this road was dirt originally. mrs. reynolds had a paved into downtown. this is a museum of american art, but it is still a really neat place. it is not what you would think of as a massive home. >> it is not the opulence you would get from somebody like the vanderbilts. >> inside it was very opulent, especially at the time. >> and now it operates as a museum. how did that happen? >> it changed hands several times, and then they wanted to do something with the art collection. they decided the museum would

be the best way to do it. the land was given by the reynolds for the school to move here from wake forest, north carolina. >> we have been all around winston-salem, and now we are going into wake forest university. tell me -- if there was something you would really like people to know about your town, what would that be? >> i would like people to know it is still a great place to live. and weot that expensive, are four hours from the beach and three hours from the mountains, so you come here and if you want to vacation somewhere else, you can still live here. it is a great place to raise your family also. staff cities tour recently traveled to winston-salem north carolina -- winston-salem, north carolina to learn more about its rich history. learn more about winston-salem and other stops on our tour at www.c-span.org/citiestour.

american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. fort cedar live at in washington dc for an all-day symposium on abraham lincoln's life and legacy. ,p next, michael burlingame author of "abraham lincoln: a life." [indiscernible conversations]