History of Charlotte

Charlotte was established in the mid-18th century, at the crossroads of two Native American trading trails: the Great Wagon Road, which ran north-south, and another road that ran east-west along what is today’s Trade Street. At the start of the 18th century, settlers of Scottish-Irish (who were mostly Presbyterian and founded many churches) and German descent from Pennsylvania followed the Great Wagon Road into the Carolina foothills.

Independence

The city is named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the German-born wife of British King George III. Allegiance to King George and his spouse didn’t last long. On May 20, 1775, townsmen are said to have signed a declaration which became known as the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.

A copy of the declaration was supposedly sent, but never formally presented, to the Continental Congress. There is no commonly acknowledged historic evidence of the document, and many doubt that it ever existed, but the supposed date of the declaration appears on North Carolina's state flag. On May 31, 1775, the same townsmen met to write and approve the Mecklenburg Resolves, a set of laws to govern the newly independent town.

Charlotte served as a military camp for both American and British troops during the Revolutionary War. An ideological breeding ground of revolutionary opinions during the Revolutionary War and for some time afterwards, the legacy carries on today in the classification of such landmarks as Independence Boulevard, Independence High School, Independence Centre, Freedom Park and Freedom Drive.

Gold rush

In 1799, 12 year-old Conrad Reed found a rock weighing about 17 pounds. His family used it as a huge doorstop for three years before a jeweller identified it as almost solid gold and bought it for a measly US$3.50.

The first confirmed gold-find in the United States, young Reed's find started the nation's first gold rush. Many streaks of gold were discovered in the area during the 1800s and in the early 1900s, thus the establishment in 1837 of the Charlotte Mint to mint local gold.

Some local groups occasionally still pan for gold in local brooks and creeks. The Reed Gold Mine ran until 1912. The Charlotte Mint operated until 1861, when Confederate forces seized the mint at the start of the Civil War. The mint remained closed after the war, but the building is still here today, although in another location, now housing the Mint Museum of Art.

Modern times

The end of the Civil War brought the city’s first boom as a cotton-processing centre and a railway hub. The population grew again during WWI, when the US government established Camp Greene, north of today’s Wilkinson Boulevard. Many soldiers and merchants stayed after the war, starting a development that was to eventually overtake older and more established competitors along the arch of the Carolina piedmont.

Charlotte's inclination for looking ahead led to the demolition of a number of landmark buildings as the city's downtown grew. Historically-minded preservationists here often struggle to preserve old landmarks in the face of modern developers.