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[SteveDallas]

Hickory is also home to one of the oldest furniture manufacturers in the United States that is still located and operated on the original site. Hickory White, formerly known as Hickory Manufacturing Company, was built in 1902 and has been in continuous operation ever since. During World War II, the factory made ammo boxes for the U.S. Military instead of furniture.

Hickory was known in the years after World War II for the "Miracle of Hickory." In 1944 the area around Hickory (the Catawba Valley) became the center of one of the worst outbreaks of polio ever recorded. Residents who were then children recall summers of not being allowed to play outside or visit friends for fear of contracting the disease. Since local facilities were inadequate to treat the victims, the citizens of Hickory and the March of Dimes decided to build a hospital to care for the children of the region. From the time the decision was made until equipment, doctors, and patients were in a new facility, took less than 54 hours. Several more buildings were quickly added. A Red Cross official on the scene praised the project "as the most outstanding example of cooperative effort he has ever seen." (Hickory Daily Record, June 30, 1944)

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The Hickory area is home to many leading manufacturers of furniture and fiber optic cable. It is estimated that 60% of the nation's furniture is produced within a 200-mile (320 km) radius of Hickory. Forty percent of the world's fiber optic cable is made in the Hickory area.