Frank Liipfert Horton was born in Winston-Salem in 1918. He served in the U. S. Navy during World War II. After the war, he returned to Winston-Salem and he and his mother, Theo Taliaferro, operated a store at Fifth and Poplar Streets.
In the late 1940s, Salem had become a thoroughfare with heavy traffic moving through South Main Street. Early historic buildings were taken over by a variety of businesses, and additional houses were built all along South Main Street. Some of the buildings were in a state of disrepair. Salem had lost its Moravian village identity.
In 1949, the Old Salem Restoration Committee was formed, and Frank Horton was the secretary. His job was to compile an inventory of what was in Salem and how it might be best preserved. His comment at the time was, “We plan to restore the old town as it was and not as we imagine it should be.”
Horton and his mother liked to search for antiques, and often took trips throughout North Carolina and Virginia. By 1952, he had organized an exhibition of Southern furniture. He and his mother began planning for a permanent home for decorative arts. They found a former grocery store at the southern end of Old Salem, and opened a museum in 1965.
Part of the museum that was not visible to the public was the research arm that provided documentation for many of the items in the museum, and covered a wide-range of handiwork from the South. This museum was called the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA), and the entire center is called the Frank L. Horton Museum Center today.
Photo courtesy of Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection.
