It all started with a Lincoln County man who really wanted to be a farmer but had to reinvent himself during the Great Depression. It took a $500 truck purchased with borrowed money along with a dose of ingenuity, entrepreneurship and of course hard work to grow that one truck into a top national trucking company. At one time, Carolina Freight employed thousands of people living in Gaston, Lincoln and adjoining counties. Carolina Freight and its founder C. Grier Beam are long gone, but the legacy that Beam created is being preserved at the C. Grier Beam Truck Museum in downtown Cherryville.