Historic Landmarks Commission 50th Anniversary

Creation of HLC by joint resolution of Charlotte City Council and Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners.  Visit the Historic Landmarks Commission 

First meeting of the Historic Landmarks Commission.

First designated landmarks in Mecklenburg County – four properties designated on that date: Huntersville’s  Cedar Grove  (pictured),  Holly Bend ,  Latta Place , and the  Dinkins House & Lodge  in Charlotte. These four antebellum properties – once inhabited by some of Mecklenburg County’s earliest settlers, including the Torance, Davidson, Latta, and Dinkins families – evidence the significant historical roles of both agriculture and slavery in the County’s early development.

Hiring of Dan Morrill as the first director of HLC.

First designated landmark in Davidson –  Philanthropic Hall , at Davidson College. Davidson College students founded the Philanthropic and Eumenean Societies as debating organizations within months of the college’s 1837 opening. Each society began work on its own campus hall in 1849.  Eumenean Hall  was the first to be dedicated (in November 1849), but Philanthropic Hall (dedicated in February 1850) became the town of Davidson’s first designated landmark. Eumenean Hall received the same distinction in January 1977.

First designated landmarks associated with the history of Mecklenburg County’s African American community –  Biddle Hall  and  Carter Hall , at Johnson C. Smith University. Two of the oldest campus buildings at Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte’s first institution of higher education for Black students, fittingly received landmark designation on the same date. Originally founded in 1867 as Freedmen’s College of North Carolina, the school was renamed twice, first as Biddle Memorial Institute and then Biddle University, before becoming Johnson C. Smith University in 1923. Built in 1884 as the first substantial building on the current campus, Biddle Memorial Hall is the oldest surviving campus building and has served as the school’s first library, a classroom building, and administrative offices. Carter Hall, constructed in 1895, is the oldest dormitory on campus.

First designated landmark in Cornelius –  Potts Place . The 500+ acre estate of planter Robert Potts, Jr. primarily produced corn, oats, and wheat, but also yielded all of the materials used to construct his circa 1814 homestead, the associated outbuildings, and many of the home’s furnishings. An early patron of Davidson College, Potts was an original member of the college’s first board of trustees. Like other area planters of that era, Potts used enslaved labor to sustain his farm operations. Following emancipation, many of the former bondspeople remained on the property as sharecroppers. In the early 20th century, Jacob Smith – who had married into the Potts family – sold land parcels from the Potts estate to local Black families giving rise to Smithville, one of the oldest African American communities in north Mecklenburg County.

First designated landmark associated with women’s history in Mecklenburg County -  Charlotte Woman’s Club . Founded in 1899, the Charlotte Mother’s Club initially met in the homes of its six original members. Between 1901 (when the organization was renamed the Charlotte Woman’s Club) and the early 1920s, membership grew to exceed 500, necessitating a dedicated clubhouse. Prominent local architect Charles C. Hook designed the clubhouse which opened in 1924. Since starting, the Charlotte Woman’s Club has engaged in a range of civic and philanthropic endeavors, playing significant roles in the creation of the local YWCA, the North Carolina Federation of Music Clubs, the Mint Museum of Art, the League of Women Voters, the Domestic Relations Court, Charlotte’s first kindergarten, and the home economics program in the county’s public schools.

Fiftieth designated landmark in Mecklenburg County – Davidson’s  Chairman Blake House . John Rennie Blake lived in this house during his 1861-1885 tenure as a Davidson College faculty member. He came to the school as Professor of Astronomy and Philosophy, and also served as the school’s bursar. In 1871, the faculty elected Blake Chairman of the Faculty, a position created by the Davidson College Board of Trustees as an alternative form of school governance. Blake led the college in that capacity until 1877, when the trustees voted to re-establish the office of college president. Following Blake’s 1885 retirement, mathematics professor William Daniel Vinson moved into the house, starting an ongoing tradition of using the house as a residence for individuals associated with the college.

First designated landmark in Matthews –  Heath & Reid General Store . Everard J. Heath and Edward S. Reid opened the Heath & Reid General Store on this site, strategically situated next to the tracks of the Carolina Central Railroad, in February 1888. The store’s inventory ranged from groceries to household mainstays (including cloth, needles, hats, zippers, and buttons) to farm supplies. The proprietors even offered banking services and engaged in cotton brokering. As Matthews’ oldest existing commercial building, the structure has since served as a grocery store, a retail furniture outlet, and a law office.

Mecklenburg County’s first designated landmark on wheels –  Charlotte Streetcar #85 . The Charlotte Railway Company started the city’s electric trolley system in 1891, using new electric trolley lines installed by the Edison Electric Company. The Southern Power Company (now known as Duke Power Company) purchased the Charlotte Railway Company in 1910 and operated the trolley system until its 1938 replacement with motor buses. Streetcar 85, constructed by the Perley Thomas Car Company of High Point, NC, most likely in the late 1910s, was Charlotte’s last electric trolley, making its final run on March 14, 1938. Following its retirement, Streetcar 85 was used as an office, a concession stand, and even a residence before being rediscovered in a Huntersville field and refurbished in the late 1980s.

First designated landmark in Pineville –  Oakley House . The circa 1920 Prairie Style house, a rarity in Mecklenburg County, was the home of Pineville businessman C.S. Oakley. He was the owner of the Pineville Lumber Company and president of the Pineville Loan and Savings Bank. One of the few remaining historic homes on the town’s Main Street, later residents of the house included some of Pineville’s leading citizens, including longtime Mecklenburg County School Board member Richard Eubanks and Pineville mayor and town council member Charles R. Yandell.

Mecklenburg County’s first designated landscape landmark –  McAuley Road Farmland . Huntersville’s 1.5 mile gravel McAuley Road runs through the best preserved and most intact rural landscape in the County, accurately depicting the area’s once dominant late 19th and early 20th century agricultural character. Most of the adjacent farmland was once part of a single 532-acre parcel conveyed in 1889 to Mary McAulay that later became part of the W.C. McAulay Estate. The land contains remnants of several tenant farmhouses, suggesting the road may have been constructed to serve tenant farmers and their families. Once common across Mecklenburg County, the open fields remaining intact along McAuley Road are now the rarest of all landscapes in the County.

Mecklenburg County’s oldest designated landmark (also the first designated landmark associated with the history of Mecklenburg County’s indigenous people) –  Big Rock Rock Shelter . Located in southern Mecklenburg County, the Big Rock Rock Shelter is one of many plutons (bodies of intrusive igneous rock) within the Piedmont plateau of North and South Carolina. Although such sizeable, randomly distributed granite boulder clusters appear throughout Mecklenburg, the Big Rock Rock Shelter area is the County’s largest known collection of exposed boulders. The area is also an important archeological resource, revealing American Indian habitation debris from as early as 7,000 years ago, as well as pre-historic and historic artifacts from more recent periods.

Mecklenburg County’s largest designated landmark – the single largest structure would be the  Charlotte Coliseum , but the largest collection of structures on the greatest amount of acreage would be the  Ford Motor Company plant  and adjoining U .S. Army Quartermaster Depot/Missile Plant . The 1955 Charlotte Coliseum was the area’s first single-purpose sports facility. The culmination of an intense 15-year promotional effort by civic and political leaders, the Odell & Associates-designed arena featured the world’s largest free-span steel dome at the time it was built, a 332 foot diameter dome standing 112 feet in height. Aside from its pioneering architectural design, the Charlotte Coliseum and the adjacent Ovens Auditorium fostered major economic growth for the city and the Independence Boulevard corridor, hosting an ongoing array of sporting, cultural, civic, and entertainment events in one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks.

In the early 20th century, the Ford Motor Company moved quickly to capitalize on the initial success of its Model T automobile. The company aggressively sought to expand its manufacturing capacity with 20 new assembly plants, including its largest factory in the southeast located just north of downtown Charlotte. Situated on 9.4 acres near railroad lines, the 1925 plant seemed poised to achieve Ford’s announced production goals of 400 cars per day. But declining sales, lagging innovation, and increasing competition combined with the 1929 stock market crash prompted closure of the plant by 1932. The 254,696-square-foot building remained vacant for nearly a decade before being purchased by the U.S. Army. Renamed the Charlotte Quartermaster Depot, the facility was one of nine major quartermaster depots the military launched in the early 1940s to service the entire country. The Quartermaster Corps expanded the property to approximately 72 acres, adding multiple warehouses and associated buildings totaling more than one million square feet of floor space. The collaborative efforts of the U.S. military and Douglas Aircraft converted the entire property into a guided missile production plant in 1954. Shuttered in 1967, the property was transferred to private ownership and leased in part to Consolidated Diesel Electric Company for the manufacture of Gama Goat trucks for the U.S. Army.

First designated landmark associated with the history of Mecklenburg County’s LGBTQIA+ community –  Cohen-Fumero House . The circa 1961 home of pottery artist and Mint Museum Exhibitions Director Herb Cohen and fiber artist Jose Fumero was a social hub for Charlotte’s artistic community. The Modernist house itself is a work of art, designed by Charlotte native and highly regarded architect Murray Whisnant whose notable works include the 1968 Van Hecke-Wettach Hall, home of the law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

HLC’s youngest designated landmark –  McDonald’s Cafeteria and Mini-Center . The 1970 McDonald’s Cafeteria and Mini-Center building was more than the first location of the popular restaurant founded and operated by Charlotte native and African American entrepreneur John McDonald. The shopping plaza served as a communal foundation for West Charlotte’s predominantly Black residents and an incubator for the city’s growing Black entrepreneurialism in the late 20th century. The restaurant quickly became a favored meeting place for community groups organizing grassroot efforts to advance civil rights and social justice in Charlotte, while the remainder of the Mini-Center housed several local Black-owned and operated businesses throughout the late 20th century.

Smallest landmark designated by HLC –  Battle of McIntyre’s Farm Monument . This single-stone 1920s monument, erected by local philanthropist and historian E.L. Baxter Davidson, commemorates an October 1780 fight. About 14 Mecklenburg County settlers ambushed and drove off approximately 300 foraging British soldiers, part of the sustained campaign of local resistance that preceded the defeat of British forces at the Battle of Kings Mountain. Such open hostilities contributed to the retreat of British General Charles Cornwallis’ troops from Mecklenburg County, culminating ultimately in his defeat at Yorktown and the successful completion of the Revolutionary War.