History of Charlotte

[Scribe]

I did not know where else to put this, it is neither good nor bad news (or it could be good or bad) depending on how you look at it. But this is part of Charlotte History.

Wilgrove Airport is shutting down and land is being redeveloped. https://www.wfae.org/post/bizworthy-charlotte-s-2nd-airport-closing-yes-charlotte-has-second-airport

 

I used to take flight lessons there in the mid 2000's. In fact my personal shortest flight ever is from this airport to the Monroe Executive (and the return trip).

It's not much of an airport, mainly single props, but it was the only flight school in the city of Charlotte!

[CLTranspo]

Does anyone know the history of this building? I love walking past it. 

[CLT>]

27 minutes ago, CLTranspo said:

Does anyone know the history of this building? I love walking past it. 

The history of the 1927 Frederick Apartments reveals that it is an important product of the times and conditions in which it was built. W. Fred Casey's decision to build an apartment house was a direct response to the decade's rapid population increase and the resultant need to house large numbers of new residents. It was built during a peak year for multi-family dwelling construction in the midst of the particularly active 1920s building boom. Architecturally, it is a fine example of a medium-sized apartment house whose design reflects a good degree of sophistication, and whose configuration reflects the social concepts of apartment living of the time. Its use of polychrome terra cotta design elements is unmatched 1920s-era architecture in Charlotte. Additionally, it was the home of acclaimed author, W. J. Cash, during the time he wrote his masterpiece social history, The Mind of the South.

 

Here's the full report from the Historic Landmarks Commission.

http://landmarkscommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Frederick-Apts-SR.pdf

 

You can find the reports for all the designated landmarks in the county here:

http://landmarkscommission.org/historic-properties-2/designated-historic-landmarks/

 

[CLTranspo]

16 hours ago, CLT> said:

The history of the 1927 Frederick Apartments reveals that it is an important product of the times and conditions in which it was built. W. Fred Casey's decision to build an apartment house was a direct response to the decade's rapid population increase and the resultant need to house large numbers of new residents. It was built during a peak year for multi-family dwelling construction in the midst of the particularly active 1920s building boom. Architecturally, it is a fine example of a medium-sized apartment house whose design reflects a good degree of sophistication, and whose configuration reflects the social concepts of apartment living of the time. Its use of polychrome terra cotta design elements is unmatched 1920s-era architecture in Charlotte. Additionally, it was the home of acclaimed author, W. J. Cash, during the time he wrote his masterpiece social history, The Mind of the South.

 

Here's the full report from the Historic Landmarks Commission.

http://landmarkscommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Frederick-Apts-SR.pdf

 

You can find the reports for all the designated landmarks in the county here:

http://landmarkscommission.org/historic-properties-2/designated-historic-landmarks/

 

Thank you!!! 

[KJHburg]

Charlotte has faced many tough times before and the most recent tough period I remember living here was during Hurricane Hugo in 1989.    Hugo was known to be a strong Cat 4 hurricane but few in Charlotte expected the devastation that we woke up to the next morning.  90% of the city was was out of power and most of the city did not get power back for 2-3 weeks!  No cooking unless on grills, no restaurants open or very few, homes destroyed by our trees, roads block, schools closed for weeks, in the first week or two very difficult to find gas stations open, ATMs working, food lines and cleaned out grocery stores.  I remember seeing windows blown out of the tallest building in town One First Union aka 1 Wells Fargo.   It was tough but my parents who lived in the university area survived, even though my Nissan Sentra had a trunk crushed in that I had to tie down I was able to drive from my southpark area apartment over there.  Neighbors shared meals cooking all their meats and food outside, people helped those who had damage,  but after the initial lives lost in the storm damage that night we survived.  I remembered thinking we never would.  But we did and we will get through this.  And yes many were out of jobs for weeks and my business stopped for about a month.  But I survived.   We WILL GET THROUGH THIS no matter how bleak it looks now.   I would be interested in your "survival" stories from Hurricane Hugo if you lived here then.  I talked to a friend life long Charlotte resident and he agrees that time period for Charlotte was worse than this locally.  (Southpark the immediate mall area and uptown were the few areas that did not lose power and some were checking into the Adams Mark Hotel uptown (now the Sheraton Le Meridian) but most stayed in their homes dark at night and survived.    My only link to the outside world was 1110 WBT radio. 

[videtur quam contuor]

Open gas stations were rare because without electricity the pumps were useless. There was a real gas station downtown on what is now Levineland. It had electricity. 

Edited March 19, 2020 by tarhoosier

[cltheel.sdl]

I was only 1 at the time (sorry to make some of you feel old) but a tree fell on our house during Hugo and we were huddled in our downstairs bathroom the entire night.  A very memorable experience for my parents and many others, I'm sure.  

[ertley]

On 3/6/2020 at 7:10 PM, CLT> said:

Additionally, it was the home of acclaimed author, W. J. Cash, during the time he wrote his masterpiece social history, The Mind of the South.

If any of you haven't read The Mind of the South, you should, absolutely. It's one of the most interesting books I've ever read. It completely upends a lot of conventional wisdom and perceptions of what the South was like before the Civil War. Importantly, it's informed not only by scholarship and historical research, but much is informed by his direct contact with Civil War veterans and those from that era that her personally knew (when they were in their old age). His nearly direct knowledge of the region from before the war is something you don't get in most purely academic works about the antebellum period, and certainly not from people of later generations. 

Just to be clear, in case anyone might misinterpret my meaning, he paints a picture of a decidedly un-salubrious South, which is all the more remarkable because he was researching and writing when the New South mantra had taken hold, and there had already been a lot of revisionist history written about the causes and motivations for the war. 

Basically, if you think the South was markedly different from what you experience now, when beyond the Charlotte metropolitan area and in remaining, typical rural areas, that's a result of the South's revisionist history. The war maybe impoverished the South, but it didn't fundamentally alter its character. It had always been largely populated by subsistence farmers who varied in levels of industriousness, and among the white population there was a stark divide between the haves and have nots. I know most people know the basic fact that the majority of white people didn't even own slaves, and that just like now, there really was a one percent, who owned the majority of them, but The Mind of the South really brings to light what that meant for the region's lived society. It was far more corn pone and hog jowl than it was pheasant and Madeira. 

As a native Carolinian, one 'data point' that I learned from the book (and loved) is that the so-called Deep South states (Alabama through upper Louisiana) that still like to claim extreme "Southern gentility" originally was just pretense, then delusion after the war (with profound implications for race relations and retributions ever after).  I knew intellectually, but had never really thought about it in context, that those areas weren't truly settled until the 1820s and '30s, and were literally just a generation away from living in actual log cabins with dirt floors when the war began (even if many of the settlers had come from established areas and families), and what they represented as a cultured and sophisticated society was really little more than wish fulfillment.

The book is in two parts, and the second half is about the politics and culture of the South after the war, and I have to admit it's a little... dry. But the first half is a genuine classic that should be far more widely known and read. 

I especially think it should be mandatory reading for schoolchildren in the Charlotte region, not only to inform them of what life was actually like in the area during the 19th century, but more importantly so they realize that such a significant figure and work came from right where they are. My God, I bet most Gaffney-ites have never even heard of him--he was from Gaffney (and later worked for a newspaper in Shelby too, I think).

To make this a little more relevant and less of a digression (I've been working remotely for over a week now, and I got time on my hands!), the city of Charlotte should try and find ways to play up its connections to him, and the fact he wrote some or all (I think) of the book while there.

His final days are still a complete mystery, dead by his own hand in Mexico City. Was he just schizophrenic, or were Nazi agents after him?? Probably the former, but it would make a good movie, if made with real talent and finesse.

Edited March 20, 2020 by ertley

[Madison Parkitect]

Yeah, the South was POOR poor back then. A ton of white people back then (probably even the majority) lived in conditions similar to the conditions slaves lived in (but they weren't owned and tortured by other people resulting in generational trauma). The further you got from the coast the poorer you'd find people, which is why the stereotype of hill people in NC, TN, and KY still applies today. Those areas were shockingly poor and still are in some cases.

[videtur quam contuor]

In a previous era tuberculosis patients were sent to a facility for such treatment as was available. Usually fresh air and cleanliness and hygiene since no medication was available. It was commonly a death sentence. I recall my mother telling of her older brother having an examination and lung Xray (I believe) and a spot which indicated presence of the disease was found. The home was so quiet as each member of the family considered his and her respective options due the close contact of the family members, as well as the well being of the brother himself. It later was determined to be an artifact of a short period when he worked in a mine. An unpleasant result but elation in comparison. If any of us remember the earliest years of HIV AIDS, TB was the precursor to this fear and desperation.

This is the TB sanatorium constructed in 1920 in Huntersville. Across the tracks from the rail line south of the town proper. Plenty of fresh air. Nurses Home due to the lack of housing nearby and (perhaps) the uncertain opportunity of local housing available due to the work environment

W. J. Cash paid a visit to the site in 1939.

ertley alert

http://www.wjcash.org/WJCash1/Charlotte.News.Articles/Sanatorium.htm

This was the state of quarantine, such as it was at that time.

 

Here is the site today, 21 March, 2020:

View from NC 115 and Verhoff Road to the left.

 

The hospital and other buildings that came later were on the level ground in the view

 

The building site is now a large lawn, enough for a cricket ground. The group in the middle are a man and woman and dog on a blanket enjoying the day.

After the sanatorium there was a newer building that functioned as a nursing home. My father spent his last three years there 1989-92

Edited March 21, 2020 by tarhoosier

[KJHburg]

From Twitter:   UNCC in the final 4 back in 1977! 

43 years ago today (March 26, 1977), the 49ers played Marquette in the Final Four in Atlanta. Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, and Lew Massey scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds in that game.

[videtur quam contuor]

ROBBED! Jerome Whitehead pushed Maxwell for the final basket.

Two years after this I played on a team in a city recreation league and Kevin King, lower left of this photo, was on a team in our league, Piedmont Airlines. He had put on a lot of weight but was still strong as an ox and it took several seconds to run around him.

[KJHburg]

today is WSOC-TVs 63rd birthday evidently.  Here from their twitter feed

 

[Bikeguy]

3 hours ago, KJHburg said:

today is WSOC-TVs 63rd birthday evidently.  Here from their twitter feed

 

^ An interesting bio on Jack Callaghan and the early history of WSOC-TV ..http://leeshep.blogspot.com/2015/06/six-marines.html

[SentioVenia]

On 1/27/2020 at 10:57 AM, tarhoosier said:

For anyone who wishes to admire the work, life and death of those earliest pioneers who set Piedmont Carolina on its arc of development I recommend the church and cemetery of Thyatira Presbyterian, west of Salisbury. It is worth the drive. The church was established from the synod of Philadelphia Pa, to sense the time and history of the place. 

Continuously used and markers from 1755 onward. 

Thyatira is a place mentioned in Revelations, last book of the Bible. Sardis and Philadelphia were, along with Thyratira, the seven churches mentioned in Revelation. 

It took me a few months, but I finally visited this cemetery and took photos.

[nicholas]

I love the centuries-old rock walls around historic cemeteries.  My mom's family has gone to Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church for generations, and it has a similar graveyard.  Markers from the 1830s if I recall correctly.

[KJHburg]

Happy birthday to our namesake from the CLT twitter feed.

Happy 276th Birthday, #QueenCharlotte! Princess Sophie Charlotte spent most of her childhood at Mirow, a castle in northern Germany known as Mecklenburg-Strelitz. At age 17, she married to King George III and became the Queen of England.

[videtur quam contuor]

So we named our incipient village Charlotte for the woman and a few years later declared independence from her husband on the day after her birthday? (she would not have known about it for weeks due to the distance and travel lag).  Meck Dec Day is May 20.

[QCxpat]

May 20, 1775 - May 20, 2020   Happy Meck Dec Day!

  

 

Links to Charlotte Mecklenburg Library 4-part series on The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence:

(1) https://www.cmlibrary.org/blog/part-i-mecklenburg-declaration-independence-real-or-fake  -  "Is the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence Real or Fake?"

(2) https://www.cmlibrary.org/blog/part-ii-mecklenburg-declaration-independence-and-mecklenburg-resolves  -  "The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and The Mecklenburg Resolves"

(3) https://www.cmlibrary.org/blog/part-ii-mecklenburg-declaration-independence-and-mecklenburg-resolves  -  "The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence Meets Controversy"

(4) https://www.cmlibrary.org/blog/part-iv-celebrating-mecklenburg-declaration-independence  - "Celebrating the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence"

 

 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by QCxpat

[KJHburg]

to follow up on @QCxpat post above here is more information on the Mecklenburg County Resolves and Meck Declaration of Independence.  Think of Mecklenburg as America's first sanctuary county!

https://www.meckdec.org/declaration

May 20 and December 3 are the biggest days in Charlotte Mecklenburg history.  

Edited May 20, 2020 by KJHburg

[videtur quam contuor]

December 3 1780 is when Nathaniel Greene arrive in Charlotte to take control of the patriot forces and fought a continuing successful campaign which eroded Cornwallis forces and forced eventual surrender, helped by the French ships under Rochambeau.

https://www.ncpedia.org/american-revolution-part-5-gen-nath

Dan Morrill, lo-o-o-o-ong time historian says this event with Greene was the most significant one in the history of Charlotte.

[KJHburg]

Also the charter of the town of Charlotte was granted on Dec. 3 1768.    in addition  there are reasons I think this date is important due to an event that happened at Mercy Hospital LOL

[11 HouseBZ]

7 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Also the charter of the town of Charlotte was granted on Dec. 3 1768.    in addition  there are reasons I think this date is important due to an event that happened at Mercy Hospital LOL

KJ, you're 252 years old?!

[KJHburg]

9 minutes ago, 11 HouseBZ said:

KJ, you're 252 years old?!

some days I feel like it 

[QCxpat]

On 5/20/2020 at 2:31 PM, tarhoosier said:

December 3 1780 is when Nathaniel Greene arrive in Charlotte to take control of the patriot forces and fought a continuing successful campaign which eroded Cornwallis forces and forced eventual surrender, helped by the French ships under Rochambeau.

https://www.ncpedia.org/american-revolution-part-5-gen-nath

Dan Morrill, lo-o-o-o-ong time historian says this event with Greene was the most significant one in the history of Charlotte.

 

On 5/20/2020 at 4:33 PM, KJHburg said:

Also the charter of the town of Charlotte was granted on Dec. 3 1768.    in addition  there are reasons I think this date is important due to an event that happened at Mercy Hospital LOL

To Honor 2 of UP's Resident Scholars:  @tarhoosier our Resident Historian, and @KJHburg our Resident Photographer & Polymath

Today 2:12 p.m. - Major General Nathaniel Greene, Commander of the American forces at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse & namesake of Greensboro, NC

Today 7:17 p.m. - Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland & namesake of The Queen City

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by QCxpat