McAdenville, NC

McAdenville is a Gaston County town on the South Fork Catawba River east of Gastonia. The 2020 census counted 890 residents. The railroad arrived in 1873, Rufus Yancey McAden bought river land in 1880, and the Springs Shoals Manufacturing Company opened in 1881. The mill made the town, and its streets, riverbanks, and older homes still carry that textile-town shape. McAdenville's famous Christmas lights began in 1956 and turned the town into Christmas Town U.S.A. each December, but the lights sit on top of a deeper mill-and-river story.

The former mill properties now carry textile work, river projects, and community uses, while the Pharr Family YMCA keeps the old company-town thread visible. U.S. 29/74 and I-85 make Charlotte-area trips easy, yet McAdenville still feels like its own small stop along the South Fork. The river remains the town's other signature. McAdenville's local scoop is a mill town that learned how to turn its winter lights into a calling card and still keep the river underneath.