November 13, 2019 – 6:00 p.m.
1. Chair’s Report: Len Norman
2. Director’s Report: Dan Morrill
3. Senior Preservation Planner’s Report: Stewart Gray
4. Butler House, 240 Sylvania Avenue, Charlotte, N.C.
Butler House
5. Potential Study List Properties
a. Simmons House, 625 Hermitage Court, Charlotte, N.C.
Simmons House
Excerpt from Legacy: The Myers Park Story
b. Ca. 1936 YMCA Building, 317 S. Caldwell Street, Charlotte, N.C.
c. Pentes Log House, 6510 Sharon Hills Road, Charlotte, N.C.
More Information on the Property
d. Morris Field Chapel, 5415 Airport Drive, Charlotte, N.C.
Morris Field Chapel
e. Davidson Log House, Eastfield Road, Davidson, N.C.
Davidson Log House
6. Old Business
7. New Business
a. Brian Clarke has provided the following thoughts:
One of the most cutting edge ways being used to identify archaeological sites and resources around the world is LiDAR. It’s been used to find previously unknown sites in Honduras (the “Lost City of the Monkey God”), Mexico (see https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/science/archaeology-lidar-maya.html), the American Southwest, Scotland, Ireland, and many many more.
I recently discovered that there is a LiDAR scan of all of Mecklenburg County performed in 2017/18 and the data set is publicly available (https://mecklenburgcounty.exavault.com/share/view/1dxv7-b5jh2qyy/Surface%20Data). A new and interesting survey could likely be extracted from this LiDAR data. For example, focusing just on county owned land (like the various large nature preserves especially those near the Catawba River and/or the areas around known neolithic sites like the Big Rock Rock Shelter or Tuckaseegee Ford) we could commission a survey to identify potential neolithic sites, lost home sites, and such.
Obviously, we tend to focus primarily on extant buildings. However, there is much more to Mecklenburg County’s history. This was an area rich in Native American culture and heritage, given that the capital of the Catawba tribe was just across the river. Yet Catawba-related sites are few and far between as they’ve mostly been lost to history (the Big Rock Rock Shelter is actually the only one of which I am aware).
Perhaps there are researchers at UNCC, JCSU, or Queens that would be interested in such a thing to keep the cost of the data analysis reasonable.
b. Consideration of Amending the Designation Ordinance for the Victor Shaw House, 2400 Mecklenburg Avenue, Charlotte, N.C.