One of the finest surviving ante-bellum structures in Lincoln County, the Hoke-Rhyne House is located on a hilltop overlooking the Laboratory Cotton Mill and the picturesque countryside along the South Fork River. It is a rare example of Greek Revival-style houses of brick construction in the county. The house was built in 1844 by John Hoke, the owner and founder of the Lincoln Cotton Mill - built
in 1819. He died in 1845, shortly after the completion of the house, and it was passed on to his daughter and her husband L. Childs continued to operate the Lincoln Cotton Mill until it burned in 1861. In 1863, the mill site became home to a Confederate pharmaceutical laboratory that provided medicines for the Southern army. The laboratory building stood until around 1886, when it was demolished to make way for the Laboratory Cotton Mill. In 1900, the house was purchased by Daniel E. Rhyne, the leader of industrial and economic progress in Lincoln County during the New South period. A company store, a school, a Methodist church and a mill village of thirty-one houses soon surrounded the Laboratory Mill and the Hoke-Rhyne House. Rhyne also made arrangements to have a telephone line run into Laboratory from Lincolnton. Among D.E. Rhynes other business interests were banking, farming, real estate, mining, and other miscellaneous businesses. He was also known as a great philanthropist. Churches in Gaston, Catawba, Lincoln, Iredell, Mecklenburg, and Guildford counties and Lenoir-Rhyne college were among those who benefited from his generosity. Daniel Efrid Rhyne died on February 25, 1933.
