Central to Downtown Historic Hillsville is a feature that is old – yet is also quite new, in a sense. In front of the Historic Carroll County Courthouse is a dry laid rock wall. This was constructed when the courthouse was built between 1872-1874. The wall is new in that it had been covered over by a six inch thick layer of concrete in 1909 with an additional veneer of brick in the 1980s. Based on archival research, an archaeological excavation was dug behind the wall in 2000 to confirm that the original wall was still intact – it was. During the revitalization of downtown Hillsville in 2002-2003, the original wall was uncovered and restored. The rock wall is a unique architectural feature not commonly found in Carroll County. It is 4 ft tall and 3 ft thick at base with a cut stone cap. Constructed of local gneiss and soapstone.