Charlotte Historic Maps

[monsoon]

I posted this in the 3rd Ward thread because it shows the former downtown ballpark, but I thought it might be of general interest because it shows downtown before the inner beltway (I-277) and I-77 was constructed.

Now you know why Central Avenue is named as such. This also shows Independance in its former glory days of being the major highway through the downtown area. Imagine if none of the highways had been built, how many more neighborhoods would be around DT today.

NCDOT map of CLT from the mid 60s

[Spartan]

I love all historic maps. Charlotte looks completely different these days. But then, most cities look very different...

[dubone]

The Charlotte skyline would look similar to Greensboro's if 77 and Brookshire freeways had not been built, and some of the people on this board would not live in Charlotte.

I believe that downtown employment survived in Charlotte because downtown freeways kept people working downtown while whites in the 60s and 70s fled to the suburbs. Without that critical mass of downtown employment, not only would we not have the scrapers, but we wouldn't have nearly as many residential projects downtown.

I love old maps.

One of my absolute favorite maps of older charlotte is the official map from 1935:

http://engbs.co.mecklenburg.nc.us/subdiv/h...rlotte_1935.jpg

It shows the old street configs, and the dashed line for all the old trolley routes.

[atlrvr]

That is a great map....in fact I have an enlarged copy of it on my office wall.....it's really interesting to see what were once separate neighborhoods have now been combined, and to see how roads have split others.......

Working for a brief period for the Charlotte DOT (something that I still visualize as a earthly representation of Hell), I got to look through all the old thoroughfare plans......It's quite interesting to see how the intent was to have the main streets on an oversized concentric grid, and how these plans never materialized.......also, the bus center downtown was originally designed to look like a giant log cabin.......how great would that have been.

[jb4563]

Here is a cool page with a map and small history of what Charlotte roads were like in 1957, before Independence, 277, 85 and 77.

http://www.ncroads.com/clt/char1957.htm

[DigitalSky]

I think that it's great that the city has archived all its older maps online, it's so much fun to see how roads have changed

[Dylan]

Such a cool map....really shows how the city used to be.