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Hoover Monument

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

The Hoover Monument honors President Herbert Hoover’s 1930 visit to the battlefield. Once you are standing in front of the monument, turn your back to it and gaze out toward the ridgeline. You are now standing where President Hoover made his speech to an unprecedented crowd of 75,000 people.


Images

  • Picture from the celebration in the Charlotte Observer on October 8, 1930.
  • Picture of President Hoover standing on the speakers' stand to deliver his speech.
  • Picture of the speakers' stand from the ridgeline. Photo Courtesy of British Pathe

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

Look to the left and to the right. There were no trees here, only a sea of people who cheered when Hoover spoke of the religious purpose of the American people and the damaging effects of communism and Bolshevism. 

His speech was broadcast live on CBS and NBC radio across the United States and Great Britain. Hundreds of newspaper outlets came to cover the event, including the New York Times, which included pictures in their Sunday edition spread that week. 

This marker placed here by the Kings Mountain Daughters of the American Revolution preserves the memory of an event that brought tens of thousands of people together in a time of depression by car, train, and Hoover Carts, horse-drawn wagons that would pick up visitors from the train and transport them to the event.  

Sources

Susan Hart Vincent, Kings Mountain National Military Park, Cultural Landscape Report, (Atlanta, GA, Southeast Region, National Park Service, 2003), 17.

Sesquicentennial Program, Kings Mountain Historical Museum Archive

“Kings Mountain Celebration As Seen by News Camera,” Charlotte Observer, October 8, 1930 

Hoover Speaks At Patriots Shrine, British Pathe, https://www.britishpathe.com/video/hoover-speaks-at-patriots-shrine/query/Herbert+Hoover+Kings+Mountain

Politico. National Park Service Centennial. . . https://www.politico.com/magazine/gallery/2016/08/national-parks-service-centennial-000667?slide=5.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Monument Photo by Stanley and Terrie Howard, March 29, 2009

Additional Information