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Old Salem is a living history museum that operates within the restored Moravian community Salem. The non-profit organization named Old Salem began its work in earnest in 1950; however, the buildings and lands are still owned by the Moravian Church.

Salem was originally settled in 1766 by the Moravians, members of a Protestant faith that first began in 1457 in the Kingdom of Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. The first exiles (in 1722) to the estate of Count Zinzendorf, the founder of the Moravian Church, came from the March of Moravia, one of the Czech Crown Lands, hence the nickname of the denomination officially called the Unitas Fratrum or Brüder-Unität or Unity of Brethren. From an earlier settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, they came to the colony of North Carolina in 1753. The central town of a 98,000-acre tract named Wachovia was Salem, where construction began in 1766. The residents focused on skilled trades, rather than farming.

The community merged with nearby Winston many years later, in 1913, and many of Salem's historic buildings remained until the 1950s, when Old Salem Inc. (a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation [1]) was formed to protect threatened buildings, restore the town, and operate portions of it as a museum.

A re-enactor portraying a shoemaker in her shop. Her tools and shoes in various stages of construction can be seen around her.

Today, the town's preserved and reconstructed buildings, staffed by living-history reenactors, present visitors with a view of Moravian life in the 18th and 19th centuries. The features include skilled reenactors such as blacksmiths, shoemakers, gunsmiths, bakers and carpenters, actually practicing their trade while interacting with visitors.

In recent years, substantial historical and archaeological research has focused on Salem's historical African-American population which primarily came from slaves purchased by the church; however, the Moravians made the slaves they purchased a respected part of the community and gave them a great degree of freedom. The studies have resulted in significant additions to the historical interpretation presented at Old Salem.

Three other museums are housed in a modern building on the site, and part of the same organization. The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA), located at Old Salem, is the only museum dedicated to exhibiting and researching the regional decorative arts of the early South. With its 24 period rooms and six galleries, MESDA showcases the furniture, paintings, textiles, ceramics, silver, and other metalwares made and used in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee through 1820. The Old Salem Toy Museum contains a wide variety of rare, old toys, mostly from the 19th and early 20th century. The Old Salem Children's museum is designed for children aged 4-9 [2].

Re-enactors protraying two young women of Salem. The seated woman is copying Bible verses using a quill.

Highlights of the village itself include the Salem Tavern, where George Washington spent two nights while passing through North Carolina, the Single Brothers House, the Boy's School (now a museum), and Winkler Bakery, as well as a host of old-fashioned shops, including T. Bagge Merchant and the Moravian Book and Gift Shop. Also of note is St. Philips Moravian Church, a church currently undergoing excavation and restoration that the community built for the slaves after the state of North Carolina ruled blacks and whites could no longer worship together.

Old Salem is also part of the campus for Salem College, with Main Hall, Sisters Hall, and the College Book Shop on the square, and Gramley Library just down Church Street. High school students attending the Governor's School of North Carolina stay in the college's dormitories each summer.

Home Moravian Church, while not a part of the Old Salem tour per se, will usually have its sanctuary open to visitors during the heavy tourist seasons. Also directly maintained by the Moravian Church is Salem Square in the center of the district, which plays host to many special events throughout the year, including a long-running band concert series in the summer. The famous water pump that many generations of Moravians and tourists have played with sits on one corner of the square.

An Easter sunrise service at held in annually since 1773 draws several thousand people to the Salem Square and Moravian graveyard. The first two weeks of December play host to the Candletea, an annual fundraiser for local charities held by the Home Moravian Church Women's Fellowship in the Single Brothers House.

The Old Salem community (and Winston-Salem as a whole) is popularly represented by a tin coffee pot, originally built by Moravian Julius Mickey in 1858 as an advertisement for his tinsmith shop. Traditionally said to hold "740 gallons of coffee", it was originally located at the intersection of Belews Street and Main Street, and represented the border between Winston and Salem at a time when the Moravians still remained isolated from their neighbors. When the cities merged in 1913, it came to symbolize the joining of the two communities.

In 1920, the pot was struck by an out-of-control car and knocked from its spot. The city forced the coffee pot's removal from its place on the street for violating advertising laws and traffic safety reasons; an outcry from residents, led by Wachovia Historical Society head Henry Fries and Moravian Bishop Edward Ronthaler, had it restored, but placed in a much safer location further back from the road.

The pot was finally moved for good in 1959 when the plans for Interstate 40 had the expressway go through Belews and Main; it has remained, more or less safely, at its present location at Main Street and Brookstown Avenue since then.

• Old Salem Museums & Gardens,