Thomas Michael Holt

Thomas Michael Holt was an American industrialist who served as the 47th Governor of North Carolina from 1891 to 1893. Formerly a North Carolina State Senator and Speaker of the House of the North Carolina General Assembly, Holt was instrumental in the founding of North Carolina State University, as well as in establishing several railroads within the state and the state's department of agriculture. Holt was also responsible for the technology behind the family's Holt Mills 'Alamance Plaids,' the first colored cotton goods produced in the South – a development that revolutionized the Southern textile industry.