Frank L. Horton

Frank Liipfert Horton (March 21, 1918 – February 21, 2004) was an American antiques dealer and founder-director of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1965. He oversaw the restoration and reconstruction of fifty buildings in the Old Salem and Bethabara historic districts of Winston-Salem from 1950 to 1972.

Biography Horton was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1918 to Theodosia Horton Taliaferro and physician Miles Horton. He was raised in Winston-Salem and graduated from Reynolds High School in 1935. He attended the Augusta Military Academy and the New Mexico Military Institute and studied business at Pace Institute, though he left after one year and never earned his degree.

Horton received an award from the American Association for State and Local History in 1965, the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1970, the Henry Francis du Pont Award from the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in 1989, an honorary doctorate of humanities from Wake Forest University in 1995, and the North Carolina Award in Fine Arts in 1999. In 1997, Old Salem named its new museum complex the Frank L. Horton Museum Center.

Horton died on February 21, 2004, at the age of 85, after suffering from Parkinson's disease for many years. He never married and had no children.