Winston-Salem Guide

Community, Recreation and Attractions

Winston-Salem is loaded with a number of activities for people of all types and certainly stands as one of the nation’s foremost authorities in art and culture. The city seems to have firmly grasped the understanding that a high quality of life means a booming economy, happy, rooted residents, superior schools and will serve as a tourism center, which helps draw thousands to the city’s streets annually.

It goes without saying that museums are a huge part of the culture here, with one of the first built by tobacco mogul, R.J. Reynolds and his Reynolda House Museum of American Art. It is one of Winston-Salem’s premier art venues.

Additionally, there is the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and the Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology, an anthropological museum maintained by Wake Forest University.

The city also offers places oriented for children including SciWorks, an interactive museum for children that teaches basics in all areas of science, which offers experiments and educational tours. There’s the Children's Museum of Winston-Salem, based on literature and incorporating classic stories and fairy tales into its permanent and traveling exhibits for younger children.

Winston-Salem was the first city to have an arts council in the United States, founded in 1949.

The city also is the home to the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Piedmont Opera Theater, the Winston-Salem Symphony, the Stevens Center for the Performing Arts, and the Sawtooth Center for Visual Arts, the National Black Theatre Festival and the RiverRun Film Festival.

Winston-Salem provides a number of athletic attractions including the Class A Minor-League baseball team affiliated with the Chicago White Sox. Wake Forest and Winston-Salem State University both have nationally recognized basketball programs.

NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series racing takes place from March until August at city-owned Bowman Gray Stadium.

Moravians, a group of people who first settled the area and created the first community orchestras, chamber music ensembles and built the first organs and stringed instruments in the colonies, are remembered at the Moravian Music Foundation, which preserves, studies and produces modern editions of music from its collections of approximately 10,000 manuscripts. These collections range from the 16th century to the present.

Also, little known to many, North Carolina has a rich history of wine making and there are dozens of wineries within a short drive of Winston-Salem.

Off the beaten path, there is the Old Salem Toy Museum, which contains a collection of toys, dolls and miniatures from European and American collections dating from as early as the third century. With more than 1,200 antique toys, it is regarded by collectors as one of the world's most prestigious toy collections.

The Timothy Vogler Gunsmith Shop, built in 1831 and operated by father and son, is a fully operational gunsmithing facility. It is one of the oldest remaining gunsmith shops in America.

Other highlights include Salem Academy & College began in 1772 as a Moravian school for girls. Today it is the 13th oldest college in the nation, as well as the oldest dedicated to the education of women. Winkler Bakery, established in 1800, still bakes their famous Moravian sugar cakes, breads and sugar cookies and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts is housed in Old Salem. It is the only museum dedicated to exhibiting and researching the original decorative arts of America's early South. Guided tours of the 24 period rooms and seven galleries are offered and showcase the furniture, paintings, textiles, ceramics and metal wares made and used in Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas through 1820.