This report was written on April 1, 2000

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Neely Slave Cemetery is located on South Ridge Drive, in the South Point Business Park, Charlotte, NC.

2. Name and address of the present owner of the property:
LBP South Point Inc.
Blaustein Boulevard #1400
One North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201

(704) 339-0304

3. Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property.

4. Maps depicting the location of the property: This report contains a map depicting the location of the property.

5. Current deed book reference: The most recent deed for the property is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 10679, page 255. The tax parcel number for the property is 203-202-01.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a historical sketch of the property prepared by Emily D. Ramsey.

7. A brief site description of the property: This report contains a site description of the property prepared Emily D. Ramsey.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S 160A-400.5:
Special significance in terms of history, architecture, and cultural importance, The Commission judges that the property known as the Neely Slave Cemetery does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations:

1. The Neely Slave Cemetery is a tangible reminder of many large farmers’ dependence on slave labor from the mid-1700s to 1864; although a minority in an area of small, self-sufficient farms, cotton plantations thrived in certain areas of Mecklenburg County through the use of African and African-American slaves.

2. The Neely Slave Cemetery is a reflection of the traditions of the Afro-American slave population; death rituals and burial practices formed an important part of these traditions, and death itself carried great significance among slaves throughout the South.

3. The Neely Slave Cemetery is one of the few known slave cemeteries in Mecklenburg County, and one of the few remaining vestiges of slavery in the county. 4. The Neely Slave Cemetery is a representative example of slave cemeteries in the area – the periwinkle that covers the site, the use of found rocks to mark the graves, and the arrangement of the graves are all common features of slave cemeteries.

5. Integrity of design, workmanship, materials, feeling, and association: The Commission contends that the site description by Emily D. Ramsey demonstrates that the Neely Slave Cemetery meets this criterion.

9. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: There are no improvements on the property. The current Ad Valorem tax appraisal for the 28.919 acres of land is $1, 643,520. The property is zoned II CD. The cemetery constitutes a small component of the property.

10. Date of Preparation of this Report: April 1, 2000

11. Prepared by:Emily D. Ramsey
745 Georgia Trail
Lincolnton, NC 28092

Statement of Significance

The Neely Slave Cemetery, once part of the Neely Plantation in the Steele Creek area of southwestern Mecklenburg County, is a site that possesses local historic significance as a tangible reminder of the use of slave labor on the county’s large farms and plantations from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the Civil War. Although the vast majority of Mecklenburg County farmers operated small farms and did not own slaves, farmers such as Thomas Neely and his descendents, John Neely I, Thomas Neely, John Neely II, and John Starr Neely, ran prosperous plantations. Proximity to the Catawba River provided especially fertile land, but it was essentially the use of slave labor that allowed for the success of these large farming operations. Slaves were responsible not only for crops such as corn, wheat, or cotton (a demanding, labor-intensive crop in itself) but also for building jobs on the farm, the tending of farm animals, and other tasks, in addition to caring for their own small garden plots.

The Neely Slave Cemetery serves not only as a visual reminder of the use of slave labor in Mecklenburg County; it also serves as a reflection of slave traditions and the importance of a “good burial” in slave culture. Slaves in the South attached great importance to the death and burial of their fellow bondsmen. The slave funeral was at once a “religious ritual, a major social event, and a community pageant,” drawing upon a mixture of cherished traditions. Although no records exist that outline the specific burial practices of the slaves on the Neely plantation, the cemetery exhibits many characteristics common among slave burial grounds in the South.

The Neely Slave Cemetery is also significant as one of the few vestiges of slavery remaining in Mecklenburg County and as one of the few known slave cemeteries in the area. Very little remains of the society that African-American slaves were able to build for themselves before the Civil War. Historian Belinda Hurmence writes that the slave dwelling, “one of the few remaining artifacts of slavery in the United States, . . . has virtually disappeared.” Slave cemeteries, nestled in remote woods and largely unmarked and forgotten, are the only vestiges of the slave community that have survived the twentieth century in Mecklenburg County. Yet, because most slave cemeteries are unmarked and undocumented, only a small number have been discovered in the area.

The existence of the Neely Slave Cemetery is intimately connected to the unique circumstances of large-scale farmers in and around Mecklenburg County during the late 1700s through the mid-1800s. The “remoteness of markets, poor roads, and the adaptability of the soil to the growth of grain and grass” greatly limited the development of a plantation economy that concentrated heavily on one cash crop. Unlike their neighbors to the north and east in North Carolina, where large plantations grew primarily tobacco and cotton for market, in Mecklenburg County even most prosperous farmers with large landholdings relied on a variety of food crops (wheat, corn, barley, oats and others) in addition to cotton. The vast majority of farms in the area were largely self-sufficient operations on a much more modest scale than those on the “rich lands of the low-country counties.”

Despite these restrictions, Mecklenburg County was still, historian Thomas Hanchett writes, “very much a part of the plantation economy,” eventually accumulating “thirty plantations each employing twenty-five or more slaves,” and “dozens of smaller farms” that utilized slave labor. The Neely family, beginning with Thomas Neely’s arrival in 1754, belonged to this class of smaller slave owners. At his death in 1795, Thomas Neely owned at least five hundred acres in the Steele Creek area, “adjacent to the Catawba River”, and approximately seven slaves. Neely bequeathed his land and slaves to his sons, John, Thomas, and Samuel. Included in his will were special requests for many of his slaves -allowing “our negro Joe . . . to be taught to read”; “giving our negro wench Susy two days every week for the purpose of providing herself in clothing”; and allowing the “negro child Dinah . . .to be learned to read.” Neely also specified, “none of my legatees may sell any of my negroes out of the family under penalty of losing their inheritance.” Although no records exist to verify whether or not these slaves remained in the family until their deaths or their freedom, the next generations of Neelys increased their slaveholdings and continued to farm the land that Thomas Neely had acquired during his lifetime. The Neely Slave Cemetery is a reflection of this interconnectedness between prosperity and ownership of slaves.

John Starr Neely (1817-1887) was the last of the Neelys to own Afro-American slaves; in his Bible, he recorded the names and dates of birth of all of the slaves born on his farm from the 1850s and 1860s. From this list and 1860 census records, which list Neely as the owner of twenty slaves (more than half under ten years old), one can estimate that John Starr Neely owned approximately twenty-four slaves by 1864. These slaves cultivated 170 of Neely’s 230-acre farm, growing cotton, Indian corn, oats, and wheat. That year, Neely was enlisted and sent to serve as a guard at the Confederate prison in Salisbury, North Carolina. By the time he returned home in 1866, the war was over and his slaves were free men and women.

John Starr Neely

Those slaves who had not survived to see Emancipation were laid to rest in a small plot in the woods behind one of the Neely’s large oat fields. African and African-American slaves in the South attached great significance to “a good burial;” a slave’s funeral was considered the “true climax” of his or her life. Their lives were spent in service to a master -death offered eternal freedom from bondage. The slave funeral was at once a “religious ritual, a major social event, and a community pageant,” drawing upon a mixture of cherished traditions. Remnants of African culture and customs mixed with the restrictions of Southern plantation life to make the slave funeral a unique ceremony. After the death of a slave, a coffin would usually be made by a slave carpenter while the body was laid out on a cooling board. Since a corpse would decay quickly in the stifling Southern heat, slaves adopted the practice of sitting up all night to guard the body from prowling animals, often “singing and praying through the night.” The funeral itself was often held at night, partly because of plantation labor requirements, partly because of the slaves’ cultural preferences. The slave funeral was, therefore, a dramatic ceremony -according to the Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, a typical slave funeral on a southern plantation proceeded in this way:

A slow procession of mourners carried pine torches to light the way to the burial ground. The coffin and pallbearers led off, followed by the family of the deceased and the master’s house- hold, with the slave community bringing up the rear. . . Whether urban or rural, the processions to the graveyard were always accompanied by slow, mournful spirituals.

As was the custom in many slave cemeteries, the bodies in the Neely Slave Cemetery were buried east-west, with their heads to the west, their “eyes facing Africa.” Some of the graves are marked with simple fieldstones, also a common feature of slave cemeteries. The remaining unmarked graves may have once had similar stones, which may have fallen or sunken over time into the ground below the covering of periwinkle. Forty-two graves have been identified, although there is a strong possibility there may be more, since the land was passed down through the family and worked by slave labor for over one hundred years.

Annabel Neely Grier, John Starr Neely’s granddaughter, recorded stories of strange occurrences at the cemetery; she wrote of “a slave cemetery on the land” where “at times a mysterious light could be seen.” On one occasion, her father, John Franklin, and “old Uncle Jim, the colored man who always lived there”, took a kerosene lantern and went to “hunt the light.” They never discovered its source.

 The Neely Slave Cemetery is also significant as one of the few vestiges of slavery remaining in Mecklenburg County and as one of the few known slave cemeteries in the area. Very little remains of the society that African-American slaves were able to build for themselves before the Civil War. Historian Belinda Hurmence writes that the slave dwelling, “one of the few remaining artifacts of slavery in the United States, . . . has virtually disappeared.” The slave quarters on the Neely plantation were torn down long ago, and no slave housing is known to have survived into the present in Mecklenburg County. Slave dwellings, usually hastily built structures of wood, sticks and mud, were used after the Civil War as “stock sheds, storage buildings, or housing for tenant farmers,” but virtually all have now rotted away or been demolished. Slave cemeteries, nestled in remote woods and largely unmarked and forgotten, are one of the only vestiges of the slave community that have survived the twentieth century in Mecklenburg County. Yet, because most slave cemeteries are unmarked and undocumented, only a small number have been discovered in the area. The largest slave cemetery yet discovered in Mecklenburg County, the W. T. Alexander Slave Cemetery, is now closed in by an upscale, gated apartment complex. The remains of seventeen slaves owned by the H.C. Dwelle family were relocated from their original home at 501 Queens Road in 1941 to make way for the Little Theater’s new building. Although the Neely Slave Cemetery is not the largest, most impressive, or best preserved slave cemetery in the area, it remains an important piece of African-American history in a region where few visible reminders of slavery and slave communities have survived.

Site Description

The Neely Slave Cemetery is located in the midst of South Point Business Park, on a plot of undeveloped land consisting of several acres. The cemetery is nestled in a small grove of trees towards the rear of a plot of undeveloped land consisting of several acres. To the south of the cemetery is a large, low brick building, and on the west and south is an open field bordered by South Ridge Drive. Beyond South Ridge Drive, visible from the cemetery, stands a row of office buildings. The grove of trees in which the cemetery is located stretches across the north side of the plot. The cemetery itself is completely inconspicuous, and would not be noticeable at all but for several “Keep Out” signs posted on trees located on the site, and the presence of blue and red flags which now mark forty-two graves.

The Neely Slave Cemetery is covered with periwinkle, a local groundcover often found at rural cemetery sites. In addition to the red and blue flags that mark the graves (blue at the head of each grave, red at the foot), a number of the graves are marked with simple fieldstones, which have not been carved or manipulated in any way. These stones were most likely picked up on the day of the burial and placed at the grave by a family member or fellow slave. The majority of the graves have no visible original markers. A group of large boulders are clustered at the south end of the cemetery, and the west and south sides of the cemetery are screened by a row of cedars. A mixture of hardwoods shades the site. Although the land around the Neely Slave Cemetery has been developed into a plush suburban office park, a sense of the original rural setting has not been completely lost.

Notes

¹ Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, editors. Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (Greenwood Press, Inc., New York: 1988) p.88.

² Belinda Humence, editor. We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard (John F. Blair, Winston Salem: 1994), p.xv.

³ Rosser Howard Taylor, Slaveholding in North Carolina: An Economic View (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: 1926) p.37.

⁴ Thomas Hanchett, “Growth of Charlotte: A History” (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission).

⁵ Ibid.

^6 Will of Thomas Neely II, dated 3 November 1793. Special thanks to Ralph Neely, Jr. for his invaluable assistance with this project.

⁷ Bible belonging to John Starr Neely. The names listed in John Starr Neely include: Adlade (b. 185?); Lanson (b. 1852); Emily (b. 1854); Samuel (b. 1847); Nolin (b. 1852); Isabela (b. 1854); Louisa (b. 1855); Annaline (b. 1856); Henry Johnson (b.1856); Francis (b. 1858); Ansin (b. 1858) Nelly Jane (b. 1859); Oliver (b.1860); Melvina (b. 1861); Frank (b.1864); Ida (b. 1864); Leroy Hoke (b. 1864).

⁸ Eighth Census of the United States: Slave Schedule, Mecklenburg County. The 1860 census lists 20 slaves owned by John Starr Neely -two adult males (ages 24 and 50), four adult females (ages 45, 32, 23, and 20), five male children (ages 13, 8, 8, 4 and 2), and nine female children (ages 14, 11, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 2, and 1).

⁹ Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, editors. Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (Greenwood Press, Inc., New York: 1988) p.88.

¹⁰ Ibid, p.88-89.

¹¹ Ibid, p. 88.

¹² Annabel Neely Grier. “Neely Homeplace” -essay compiled for Pat Hall, developer of Carowinds.

¹³ Belinda Humence, editor. We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard (John F. Blair, Winston Salem: 1994), p.xv.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Charlotte Observer, “Once A Cemetery, Now Home Of Little Theater” (September 1, 1978).

This report was written on May 31, 1976

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Neel Home is located to the southwest of the intersection of Shopton Rd. and Withers Rd. in the southern portion of Mecklenburg County.

2. Name, address, and telephone number of the present owners of the property:
The present owner of the property is:
Mrs. Hannah J. Withers
2001 Queens Rd.
Charlotte, NC 28207

Telephone: (704) 332-5744

3. Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property.

4. A map depicting the location of the property: This report contains a map depicting the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent reference to this property is found in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 911 at page 426. The parcel number of the property is: 19921101.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property:

Sufficient documentation is not available to determine the exact date of the construction of the house. Samuel Neel, son of Henry Neel and Nancy Reed Neel, built the Neel house sometime between 1810 and his death in 1828. The structure replaced a less refined dwelling which Samuel Neel and his family had occupied nearby. A prominent farmer and landowner in the Steele Creek Community, Samuel had married Margaret Grier in 1798. Eight children were born to this union. They were William Henry Neel (1799-1888), Susan Spratt Neel (1801-1844), Thomas Grier Neel (1803-1885), Samuel I. Neel (1805-1861), James Hamilton Neel (1807-1827), Nancy Hannah Neel (1810-1857), Alexander Grier Neel (1815-1898), and Margaret Adeline Neel (1821- 1896). That Samuel Neel achieved prominence in the Steele Creek Community is not surprising. His father, Henry Neel was among the early Scotch-Irish settlers in this section of what was then a portion of Anson County. Henry Neel began to acquire land along the Banks of Armour’s Creek as early as 1762. A significant portion of this property was subsequently acquired by his son, Samuel. In other words, Samuel did not start from scratch. His birth on May 28, 1773, had brought him into a family of considerable substance. Margaret Grier Neel lived in the house as a widow until her death on October 18, 1837.

The plantation continued to prosper under the supervision of her four surviving sons. The youngest, Alexander Grier Neel, resided in the house until his death on February 25, 1898. For many years, Alexander served as an elder in the Steele Creek Presbyterian Church, thereby carrying on the Neel tradition of active membership in that congregation. Indeed, many members of the family are buried in the cemetery there. The most prominent of Samuel’s children was William Henry Neel, his eldest son. Acquiring the title of “General” because of his leadership of the local antebellum militia, General Neel maintained a keen interest in public affairs. Married in 1819 to Miss Hannah G. Alexander, he lived in a home which he constructed nearby. He was County Commissioner and a member of the Steele Creek Presbyterian church. He derived his livelihood from the cultivation and processing of cotton. He was one of the first citizens in Mecklenburg County to engage in the cotton manufacturing business. In the years before the Civil War, he operated a cotton mill near his home. Alexander Grier Neel’s widow and children sold the Neel House and surrounding property in 1899. In the second decade of this century it was purchased by Benjamin F. Withers, who lived on what was then East Ave. in Charlotte at the present location of the Lawyers Building. Mr. Withers conducted farming and dairy operations on the property and used the house as a summer residence. His son and daughter-in-law, Hannah J. Withers, lived in the house for a short time after they were married. Their daughter and son-in-law, James B. Craighill, also moved into the house as newlyweds, residing there for about four years. The house has continued to serve as a rural retreat for the Withers family.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains an architectural description prepared by Jack O. Boyte.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria set forth in N.C.G.S. 160-399.4:

a. Historical and cultural significance: The historical and cultural significance of the property known as the Neel House rests upon two factors. First, it has strong associative ties with a family of considerable local prominence. Second, it has architectural value as one of the finer Federal Style plantation houses extant in Mecklenburg County. Indeed, it is the only structure of its type in the Steele Creek Community.

b. Suitability for preservation and restoration: The Neel House retains much of its original integrity and therefore is suitable for preservation and restoration.

c. Educational value: The Neel House has educational value as one of the finer older homes Mecklenburg County.

d. Cost of acquisition, restoration, maintenance or repair: The Commission has no intention of purchasing this property nor is it aware of any intention of the owner to sell. The Commission assumes that all costs associated with renovating and maintain the structure will be paid by the owner or subsequent owners of the property.

e. Possibilities for adaptive or alternative use of the property: The Commission concurs with the present owner’s intention to maintain the house as a viable dwelling. The house could be transformed into a house museum.

f. Appraised value: The current tax appraisal of the structure is $8,220. The current tax appraisal value of the land is $68,140. The Commission is aware that designation of the property would allow the owner to apply for a special tax classification.

g. The administrative and financial responsibility of any person or organization to underwrite all or a portion of such costs: As indicated earlier, the Commission has no intention of purchasing this property. Furthermore, the Commission assumes all costs associated with the structure will be net by whatever party now owns or will subsequently own the property. Clearly, the present owner has demonstrated the capacity to meet the expenses associated with maintaining the structure.

9. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria established for inclusion of the National Register of Historic Places: The Commission judges that the property known as the Neel House does meet the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places. Basic to the Commission’s judgement is its knowledge of the fact that the National Register of Historic Places functions to identify properties of local and state historic significance. The Commission believes that the property known as the Neel House is of local historic significance and thereby meets the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places.

10. Documentation of why and in what ways the property is of historical importance to Charlotte and/or Mecklenburg County: As noted earlier, the property known as the Neel House is of local historic importance for two reasons. First, it has strong associative ties with a family of considerable local prominence. Henry Neel was among the first settlers in the Steele Creek Community. His son, Samuel, made the house the center of a major cotton plantation. His son, Alexander, was an elder in the Steele Creek Presbyterian Church. General Neel was prominent in political and commercial affairs. Second, the house has architectural value as one of the finer Federal Style plantation houses extant in Mecklenburg County.

Bibliography

An Inventory of Older Buildings in Mecklenburg County and Charlotte for the Historic Properties Commission.

Materials supplied to James A. Stenhouse by James B. Craighill.

Records of the Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office.

Records of the Mecklenburg County Tax Office.

Date of preparation of this report: May 31, 1976

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
139 Middleton Drive
Charlotte, NC 28207

Telephone: (704) 332-2726

In Southern Mecklenburg County, where Shopton Road approaches the Catawba River at Armour’s Creek, stands the remarkably preserved ancestral home of the Neel family. This two story Federal house, with Georgian influences, is an exceptional example of the plantation architecture favored by the hardy 18th century Scotch-Irish settlers in Piedmont Carolina. Since its original erection, probably early in the nineteenth century, the house has been constantly inhabited, most of the time by members of the Neel family, so it has suffered no damage from neglect and little from weather or age. The house is a simple two story rectangular structure with a one story lean-to wing extending across the full width at the rear. Built on a high knoll and facing southeast toward the river, the house has a center hall plan with two primary rooms on each floor. Two lesser rooms occur off the hall in the lean-to, and one is at the head of the stair. The front facade is three bays wide with symmetrically-placed nine-over-nine light windows at each side of the main entrance downstairs and three balancing six light-over-nine light windows on the second floor. Each end elevation features carefully crafted double shouldered chimneys rising high above a gabled roof. Single windows flank these chimneys on each floor, and small, four light garret windows occur beside the chimneys in the gable walls at each end. In the southwest end of the first floor lean-to is a small single shouldered chimney flanked also by six light over six light windows.

All chimneys are of hand-made brick, likely produced on the farm, and expertly so, since they show no deterioration. Brick colors range from deep brownish and bluish red to lighter sand and earth tone buff, also typical of the eighteenth century Plantation brick of this region. Coursing is Flemish bond and shows the expected queen closers at each corner. The chimneys rest on field stone bases which rise to the same height as the solid foundation walls of the house, also of field stone. Above this foundation wall, the exterior surfaces of the house are covered with moderately wide clapboard finished on the lower edges with a delicate hand planed bead. Corners are defined with narrow boards joined at a beaded edge. At the eave a shallow overhang rests on a relatively plain bed mold with no frieze. The overhang facia is trimmed with wide intricately-shaped shingle molding. This wide molding is repeated in the barge trim on the gable rake. The barge molding terminates at the eave ends in a unique pedestal, designed as the top of a small classical pilaster and capital and showing strong Georgian influences.

Exterior window and door openings are surrounded with elaborate wide casing. One piece window sills are exceptionally heavy molded wood with bull nose edges turning down to a cavetto form below. A tall exterior windows are original three panel blinds with hand-wrought strap hinges and drive pintles still in place. The original six panel front and rear doors are intact, set in fine heavy molded frames which include four light transoms above both entrances. The high pitched roof is now covered with tin sheets, though the original surfaces were likely hand riven cypress or oak shingles smoothed with a draw knife. On entering the front door one encounters a strangely narrow canter hall running front to rear. Just inside the entrance, the hall forms a small foyer from which doors open at the left into an elegant dining room and at the right into a much simpler and smaller parlor. In the rear portion of the hall, whose length is reduced by an interior door at the rear of the two story section of the house, is a narrow stair which begins with steep winders in the rear hall corner and rises in a single run toward the front thirteen feet to a small second floor landing. This stair occurs within the hall space and results in a hall width barely adequate for the rear interior door. The stair is relatively simple and cramped yet it features exceptionally fine scroll brackets at the ends of open treads on the string. Walls in the first floor hall are plaster above fine molded chair railing. Below this are carefully trimmed recessed wood panels forming a sophisticated wainscot. At the top, a simple crown mold joins the plaster walls to flat wide ceiling boards. The door leading from the foyer to the dining room is not original, but when one enters this room an extraordinary display of elegant trim appears. Most striking is the large fireplace surrounded by a sophisticated mantle and overmantle. This woodwork is an elaborate combination of molded and reeded members delicately fabricated by hand to create an impressive center piece.

While the work is light and somewhat delicate, it still has a Georgian character. In this room, which encompasses half of the first floor area, there is also fine panelled wainscoting on all walls below plastered upper surfaces. The repeated recessed panels in the wainscot are two feet or more wide and fabricated from a single board. At the ceiling, a massive modillion cornice surrounds the room. Featuring intricate molded bands with an intermediate reeded band, this cornice includes a continuous line of small dentils separated by round pierced inserts. The ceiling consists of wide tongue and grooved boards on whose surface one can see the elongated plane marks typical of hand finished material. Floors are also hand-planed wide tongue and grooved pine planks. In this room one window faces the front and two occur at the side, flanking the centered fireplace. A noteworthy feature in this fireplace is the hearth formed of large flat sand stone slabs. It is said that these stones have the ability to trap and hold heat, and thus provide a lasting warming surface for food containers.

In the rear dining room wall an original door leads to a small lean-to room containing a simple fireplace. This was likely a pantry area and the fireplace used to warm food prepared in an exterior kitchen. Much of the finish work in the lean-to room has been replaced with modern materials in recent years. From the entrance foyer a hall door on the right opens into a surprisingly simple parlor. Since the dining room is so elaborately decorated, the restrained detailing in the parlor is more striking. The fireplace in this room is quite small and surrounded with-just a minimum of narrow molded trim. There is no over mantel. Walls in this room have molded panel wainscoting with the same chair rail that occurs elsewhere. Above this the surfaces are plaster and terminate at a narrow crown mold joining smooth, hand-planed ceiling boards. Of the three second floor rooms, the large master bedchamber dominates. This room comprises fully half of the second floor area and matches the size of the dining room below. In this room the panelled wainscoting with smooth wide surfaces cut from boards fully two feet presents an impressive lower wall finish. Above this, plastered surfaces extend to a simple crown mold at the wood ceiling. The fireplace in this room is small and simple.

On the opposite side of the stair landing is a small unimposing bed-chamber. In this room the trim is simple, though there is fine wainscoting similar to that found elsewhere in the house. There is no fireplace in this chamber even though the chimney at this end is double shouldered with the high shoulder above the expected location of second floor fireplaces. As a matter of fact, the house has been altered on several occasions. Some changes appear to have been made early in the nineteenth century. Aside from the obvious removal of the east side second floor fireplace, there are strong indications that a garret stair was installed in the corner of the small bedchamber in the early 1800s. Several changes in the garret framing were made soon after the original construction, including the addition of four light garret windows in the early years. The entire garret is now floored with modern planks. In the garret one can see the remarkable hand hewn rafters and joists mortised and tenoned and secured with trenails. Each member is marked in a Roman numeral series. This is typical of the identification method used by early craftsmen for ground fabrication and fitting prior to the erection of heavy framing members. In the attic the original rough water sawn shingling strips remain with ends of the original stamped shingling sprigs showing. The massive water sawn exterior framing members are exposed in a small closet below the garret stair. These members are fully six inches or more square and joined with typical mortise and tenoned connections secured with large wooden pegs, no nails having been used in the frame of the house. In this closet area one can see the exceptional brick ‘noggin’ (or filler) which occurs between all of the exterior wall studs. Plaster surfaces are applied directly to this brick on both floors and remain in fine condition.

There is one original dependency remaining in the main house vicinity. A two story log storage building stands at the rear which retains much of its original material. Of particular note is a fine handmade battened door with original wrought iron strap hinges. During the middle years of the eighteenth century, the Piedmont region of North Carolina south of Salisbury saw a steady influx of Scotch-Irish settlers. After early years in log structures, most of which have been lost, these families steadily improved their fortunes and around the turn of the century and many of them built more sophisticated manor houses. The Neel House is an outstanding example of this Federal period architecture in Mecklenburg, and must be numbered among the most important structures remaining in the county. Its preservation and restoration are essential.

Name and location of the property: The property formerly known as the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex is located at 127 West Worthington Avenue at Camden Road in Charlotte, NC.

Name, address, and telephone number of the present owner of the property: The owner of the property is:

Camden Square Associates LLC

c/o MECA Properties

908 S. Tryon St.

Charlotte, NC 28202

Telephone: (704) 372-9461

Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property.

A map depicting the location of the property: This report contains a map that depicts the location of the property.

Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent deed to this property is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 8984 on page 972. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is 121-022-03.

A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Emily D. Ramsey.

A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Emily D. Ramsey.

Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria for designation set forth in NCGS 160A-400.5:

1. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture and/or cultural importance:

The Historic Landmarks Commission judges that the property known as the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, based on the following considerations:

The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex is a tangible reflection of the tremendous growth that the hosiery industry in particular experienced during the post-war period in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex is important for its association with William Nebel, the founder of the Nebel Knitting Company, a pioneer in the southern hosiery business and the man responsible for bringing the hosiery industry to Charlotte.

The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex is architecturally significant as one of the few examples of the Art Moderne building style in the Charlotte area, and represents the aggressive efforts towards modernization within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg hosiery industry after World-War II.

The building was designed by Herman V. Biberstein, noted Charlotte engineer and architect and son of Richard C. Biberstein, who designed the Nebel Knitting Mill at 101 West Worthington in the 1920s.

1. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association:

The Historic Landmarks Commission contends that the architectural description included in this report demonstrates that the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex meets this criterion.

Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Historic Landmarks Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a designated “historic landmark”. The current appraised value of the improvements is $469,360. The current appraised value of the .719 acres is $112,750. The property is zoned UMUD.

Date of Preparation of this Report: 14 August 1999

Prepared by: Emily D. Ramsey

745 Georgia Trail

Lincolnton, NC 28092

Telephone: (704) 922-5198

Statement of Significance

The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex

127 West Worthington Avenue

Charlotte, NC

Summary Paragraph

The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex, erected in 1946, is a structure that possesses local historic significance as a building that reflects, both in its style and its function, the push towards modernization and the tremendous growth that occurred in the Charlotte hosiery industry after World War II. William Nebel, a third-generation German knitter who brought the hosiery industry to Charlotte when he established the Nebel Knitting Company in 1923, was a pioneer in the hosiery industry. His company produced innovative styles for full-fashioned lady’s hosiery until the late 1960s, and Nebel himself held over a dozen patents for his original designs. The Nebel Knitting Company initiated a period of rapid growth in the fledgling Charlotte hosiery industry throughout the 1920s and 1930s and created much needed diversity within the city’s textile industry, which was dominated by cotton textile manufacturers. The Nebel Knitting Company continued to flourish through the Great Depression, with a newly expanded building located at 101 West Worthington Avenue. William Nebel and his company were in a prime position at the end of World War II to meet the tremendous demand for women’s full-fashioned nylon hosiery, and in the post-war period the Nebel Knitting Company became the largest and most productive hosiery concern in Mecklenburg County, and an internationally known name in hosiery. As the center of a large expansion program designed to modernize the Nebel Knitting Company completely, the 1946 annex to the Nebel Knitting Mill is a tangible reminder of this boom time in Charlotte industry, and represents the importance of modernization within the textile industry during the post-war period.

Architecturally, the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex is significant as one of the few buildings within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area designed in the Art Moderne style. Most textile mills in the area, including the adjacent Nebel Knitting Mill at 101 West Worthington Ave, were “revivalistic structures” which reflected the “conservative philosophy that characterized the political, social and economic thinking of Charlotte’s business elite”. Herman V. Biberstein’s innovative design for the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex broke with this conservative trend. The strong horizontal lines of the facade, emphasized by closely spaced concrete stringcourses and subtly balanced with simple pilasters are elements which characterized the revolutionary art and architecture movements of the early twentieth century. The building was decorated only with its clean lines, understated details and symmetry – elements that were indicative of the Art Moderne style. Such a structure not only broke with the architectural tradition of the Charlotte’s textile community, it also reflected the move towards a more modern industry. The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex housed the most up-to-date knitting machinery available after the war, and the modern elements of the structure reflected the changes taking place within the industry, giving the Nebel Knitting Company a modern image to go along with its revolutionary knitting techniques.

Commerce and Industry Context and Historical Background Statement

The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex, erected in 1946, housed operations that contributed significantly to the revolutionary growth of the Southern hosiery industry within the Charlotte area during the boom period following World War II. When William Nebel, a German immigrant and third-generation knitter, came to Charlotte and established the Nebel Knitting Company in 1923, the city was “on the crest of the wave” in terms of its textile production and prosperity. Charlotte was, at that time, “the largest center in the South for textile mill machinery and equipment,” and the city served as the heart of a large and profitable textile region that covered North and South Carolina as well as large parts of Tennessee and Georgia. Charlotte’s reputation within the textile community made it an attractive site for a diverse array of new businesses and manufacturers, including William Nebel. When the Nebel Knitting Company began its small operation on the second floor of a building on East Kingston Avenue, it was the first knitting manufacturer in the Charlotte area. Although other knitting manufacturers soon followed (there were five hosiery mills in Charlotte by the 1930s), the Nebel Knitting Company continued to prosper. The company quickly outgrew its East Kingston Avenue location, and in 1925 Nebel moved his operations into a much larger building at 1822-1824 South Boulevard. By the end of the 1920s, the company had again expanded its production to meet the skyrocketing demand for women’s full-fashioned hosiery. The construction of a new building, situated beside the Southern Railroad line at 101 West Worthington Avenue in the heart of the prestigious Dilworth industrial sector, reflected Nebel’s tremendous success in Charlotte. The new mill was completed in 1927 and expanded in 1929 to more than double its original size, making it the largest hosiery mill in the city.

The economic devastation of the Great Depression, which destroyed many Charlotte textile manufacturers during the 1930s, did not stop production in the area’s relatively new hosiery industry. The Nebel Knitting Company continued to produce nylon hosiery throughout the Depression, and William Nebel would later claim that his company, even during the most difficult times, had “never had a year when it wasn’t in the black”. The beginning of World War II opened even more opportunities in the hosiery industry. Many manufacturers switched to war-time production of nylon military supplies, which had replaced silk in the manufacturing of tents, ropes, and parachute material.

The post-war period was a tremendously prosperous time for the Nebel Knitting Company and for the industry as a whole. After the war, the Southern hosiery industry was poised to enter its biggest boom period to date. As soon as December of 1945, the Charlotte Observer proclaimed that there would soon be “a great expansion of the South’s knitting industry”, brought about by an unprecedented demand for women’s full-fashioned hosiery; Taylor R. Durham, secretary of the Southern Hosiery Manufacturers Association, revealed in the article that “quite a number of companies [were] planning expansion of their production capacity”. William Nebel, determined to take advantage of the boom in business and the new technologies within the knitting industry, outlined an ambitious plan for the expansion and complete modernization of the Nebel Knitting Mill. The cornerstone of this plan involved the building of a new, modern addition to the existing building at 101 West Worthington, which would give the company a total 125,000 square feet of working space. Nebel commissioned Charlotte architect Herman V. Biberstein, son of Richard C. Biberstein (who had designed the Nebel Knitting Mill) and head of the architectural firm Biberstein & Bowles since his father’s death in 1931, to design the new addition. The resulting structure, the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex, was completed in 1946 and outfitted with the most modern knitting machinery available within the next two years. By 1949, Women’s Daily Wear magazine reported that the Nebel Knitting Company was beginning “production of 60-gauge, 15-denier nylon full-fashioned hosiery” at its newly modernized plant.

To draw attention to the company’s newly outfitted and modernized facilities, and to the innovative styles of women’s hosiery produced in the mill’s modern annex, William Nebel began an extensive and aggressive national advertising campaign in the late 1940s. The new ads, which appeared in prestigious women’s magazines such as Vogue, Charm, Bazaar, Seventeen and Glamour, featured well-known movie star Jane Russell and helped to make Nebel a top name in hosiery not only in the South, but throughout the country. The company’s success and its rising prestige within the industry during and after the 1940s made it not only the “largest and most productive hosiery concern in Mecklenburg County” but also one of the largest in the Southeast. William Nebel followed the lead of other major textile operators in the Carolinas and kept an office on the eighteenth floor of the Empire State Building. “Nebel and nylons”, the Charlotte News declared in 1953, “are two words that are often spoken by the nation’s retail merchants”.

The Nebel Knitting Company led the Charlotte hosiery industry into a new era of modern manufacturing during the boom period following World War II. William Nebel, Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s most successful hosiery manufacturer and a pioneer in the hosiery industry, not only brought the industry to Charlotte, but continued throughout the post-WWII period to push for modernization and innovation within the hosiery industry. The Nebel Knitting Mill continued to produce women’s hosiery and pantyhose until 1968, when the complex (including the original structure and the annex) was sold to Chadbourn, Inc. The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex is currently occupied by Design Center of the Carolinas.

Architectural Description and Historical Background Statement

The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex, constructed in 1946, stands on the corner of West Worthington Avenue and Hawkins Street at 127 West Worthington Avenue. The structure is one of many buildings that comprise the industrial sector of nearby Dilworth, Charlotte’s first streetcar suburb. The location of the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex and its neighbors is intimately tied to three important events: the laying of the first Charlotte line of the Southern Railroad along South Boulevard in October of 1852; the development of Charlotte’s first cross-town electric streetcar system in 1891; and the subsequent rise of Dilworth, Charlotte’s first streetcar suburb. Edward Dilworth Latta and the Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company developed the Dilworth area during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. The key to Dilworth’s long-term success as a residential community lay in the development of a nearby industrial sector, which brought hundreds of families to the area. Large manufacturing plants like the Atherton Cotton Mill, the Charlotte Trouser Factory, and the Park Manufacturing Company formed the basis of the new industrial district, which the Charlotte Observer dubbed in 1895, “the Manchester of Charlotte”. “Because employees found residences in Dilworth,” historian Dan Morrill explains, “the newly established industries in the suburb enabled the residential scheme of the Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company to survive.” With easy access to both the railroad and a main streetcar line that ran from Dilworth to the intersection of Tryon Street and Trade Street (the heart of downtown Charlotte), it was inevitable that the area between South Boulevard and the railroad line in Dilworth would develop into a major industrial sector.

When William Nebel came to Charlotte in 1923 to set up the Nebel Knitting Company, the Dilworth industrial sector was a thriving area of diverse businesses and manufacturers of trousers, flour, shirts, textile supplies, elevators and heaters were just a few of the products that flowed out of the district. It was an ideal location for the first Charlotte hosiery concern, and Nebel set up his modest operation in the second floor of a building on East Kingston Avenue. As the company prospered and expanded, Nebel kept his company near the Dilworth area, first moving to a larger building at 1822-1824 South Boulevard and finally constructing his own plant on West Worthington Avenue, bordering the railroad tracks.

By the time plans for a modern annex to the Nebel Knitting Mill were drawn up in 1945, the streetcar line was gone, and an ever-expanding network of paved highways that had begun converging in Charlotte during the 1920s made trucks a rival to the railroad as a means of transporting goods. The end of World War II signaled the beginning of a modern era for the hosiery industry, and William Nebel’s ambitious plans for the expansion and modernization of his plant and his products reflected the post-war boom in hosiery. The new, modern annex, which would house $500,000 worth of top-of-the-line knitting equipment that Nebel had ordered, was the center of the expansion plan. The contract was awarded to the Atlanta Building Company in December of 1945, and a building permit was issued on January 29, 1946. Herman V. Biberstein, son of noted Charlotte architect Richard C. Biberstein, was chosen as the architect for the estimated $150,000 project.

Designed in the distinctive 20^th century Art Moderne style, which stressed the reflection of a structure’s function through emphasis on the utilization of new technologies, simple massing and very little ornamentation, the building was a fitting symbol for the new direction that the Southern hosiery industry, led by the Nebel Knitting Company, was taking. Not only would the 30,000-square-foot, steel, concrete and brick structure be outfitted with the most modern equipment, it would also feature “the most modern type of air-conditioning and artificial lighting” and a new form of insulation which would be “inside the masonry”. Although Nebel intended the new annex and the existing plant to operate essentially as “one unit,” the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex, with its distinctive and atypical Art Moderne elements, must have seemed an odd contrast to the more conservative style of the Nebel Knitting Company’s main building, a traditional “revivalistic structure” that reflected “the conservative political, social, and economic thinking” of the past decades. H. V. Biberstein’s innovative design for the annex broke with these traditions, creating one of the few Art Moderne structures in the Charlotte area.

The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex consists of a single structure located on a rectangular lot on the corner of West Worthington Avenue and Hawkins Street, to the southeast of the center city area on the west side of South Boulevard and the Southern Railroad line. It borders the sidewalk on both the northeast and northwest sides, and faces West Worthington Avenue. The building is a two-story, square-shaped red brick building in common bond, five bays wide by six bays deep, with a flat roof interrupted by a centrally located arch which indicates the location of an interior atrium.

The facade of the building is done in a deep russet face brick. The strong horizontal lines of the facade are emphasized by closely spaced concrete stringcourses which lead the viewer to the front entrance, a centrally located recessed entryway covered by a curved metal roof which bears the name of the current occupant, the Design Center of the Carolinas. The entrance itself is highlighted with alternating rows of stack-bonded brick and concrete which surround the recess. The strong horizontal emphasis of the first floor of the facade is subtly balanced with simple brick pilasters in stack bond. A plain concrete stringcourse runs along the facade and visually separates the upper and lower floors. The fenestration of the building is regularly punctuated along the facade. Two groupings of three windows flank each side of a large central window that rises to the top of the arched roofline of the atrium. The windows have a rectangular, 5 over 6 configuration with clear glass panes and blue-painted metal muntins. Four grouping of two windows with the same configuration can be seen on the northwest side of the building.

The interior of the Nebel Knitting Mill Annex was remodeled extensively in the mid-1990s. The original layout, two separate stories of uninterrupted space designed to accommodate Nebel’s large knitting machines, has been converted into a series of small business spaces surrounding a central atrium. Much of the second floor was removed to create the atrium; the original wood flooring was used to create the new second floor balconies. A new metal staircase rises to the second floor balconies at the front of the atrium. The fenestration on the facade and the northwest side, as well as clerestory windows above, were added to light the new space.

Although the building was altered during this 1995-96 remodeling, it still retains many of its important exterior features, and no changes have been made to the overall massing of the structure. The building retains its clean lines, understated details and symmetry – elements that were indicative of the Art Moderne style. The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex is a structure that is significant not only because it broke with the architectural tradition of Charlotte’s textile community, but also because it is reflective of the move towards a more modern industry in the post-war years. The Nebel Knitting Mill Annex housed the most up-to-date knitting machinery available after the war, and the modern elements of the actual structure reflected the changes taking place within the industry, giving the Nebel Knitting Company a modern image to go along with its revolutionary knitting techniques.

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Nebel Knitting Mill (former) is located at 101 West Worthington Avenue at Camden Road in Charlotte, NC.

2. Name, address, and telephone number of the present owner of the property: The owner of the property is:

Old Spaghetti Warehouse, Inc.
6120 Aldwick Drive
Garland, Texas 75045

Telephone: (214) 226-6000

Tax Parcel Number: 121-022-03

3. Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property.

4. A map depicting the location of the property: This report contains maps which depict the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent deed to this property is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 6321 at page 24. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is 121-022-03.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Suzanne S. Pickens and Richard L. Mattson, Ph.D., Historic Preservation Services.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Suzanne S. Pickens and Richard L. Mattson, Ph.D., Historic Preservation Services.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets criteria for designation set forth In NCG.S. 160A-400.5:

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and /or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Nebel Knitting Mill (former) does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following consideration:
1) the Nebel Knitting Mill (former) is the most intact hosiery mill yet identified in Charlotte;
2) the Nebel Knitting Mill (former) is architecturally significant as an intact and finely, yet subtly ornamented example of industrial architecture constructed in the late 1920s;
3) the building was designed by Richard C. Biberstein, noted Charlotte mill engineer and architect;
4) the Nebel Knitting Mill (former) is significant as a tangible reminder of the importance of the full fashioned silk hosiery industry to the diversification and, in some cases, the survival of the textile industry in North Carolina during the post-World War I slump in the industry and the effects of the Great Depression on textile production; and
5) the building is important for its association with the Nebel Knitting Company and its founder, William Nebel, a pioneer in bringing the hosiery industry to the South, to North Carolina, and to Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in particular.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural description by Historic Preservation Services included in this report demonstrates that the Nebel Knitting Mill (former) meets this criterion.

9. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a designated “historic landmark.” The current appraised value of the improvements is $902,400. The current appraised value of the 1.769 acres is $96,500. The total appraised value of the property is $998,700. The property is zoned I-2.

Date of Preparation of this Report: 26 November 1990

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill in conjunction with Nora M. Black
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission
1225 South Caldwell Street, Box D
Charlotte North Carolina 28203

Telephone: (704) 376-9115

NOTE: The following architectural and historical reports, combined on the form entitled “National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, ” were prepared by Historic Preservation Services under the auspices of Old Spaghetti Warehouse, Inc. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission is not responsible for errors.

A Physical Description

Constructed in 1927 and expanded in 1929, the (former) Nebel Knitting Mill, manufacturer of ladies fine quality, full-fashioned hosiery until 1968, is the most intact hosiery mill in Charlotte. Vacant since the fall of 1989, the mill complex stands at 101 West Worthington Avenue, on a parcel bounded by West Worthington, Camden Road, Hawkins Street, and a service alley. In addition to the 1927-1929 mill, the complex includes a 1946 expansion–a separate building attached to the 1927 section by a covered truck passageway, now bricked in. This 1946 building, with distinctive Art Moderne elements of style, has been detached from the 1927-1929 mill during the mill’s adaptive rehabilitation, and is not being proposed for nomination to the National Register.

Noted Charlotte textile mill architect and engineer Richard C. Biberstein designed the 1927-1929 Nebel mill. Extant architectural specifications for the 1929 section indicate that Biberstein and William Nebel, founder of the Nebel Knitting Company, intended this section to match the 1927 buildings in materials and detailing (Biberstein Collection). Integrated as one two-story building approximately 204 feet across the facade and 182 feet deep, and sharing similar materials and decorative elements, the 1927-1929 mill includes an open square with an approximately 9,000 square-foot courtyard in the center. Since the knitting of fine, full-fashioned, silk and synthetic hosiery required superior eyesight and good light, it is likely the mill was designed with this configuration to allow for maximum natural light during the day shifts. Notes by the architect indicate that William Nebel specified that the mill should be wide enough for two knitting machines; the layout of the mill, then, gave each knitter a large window to light his machine.

The 1927 section is five bays wide; the 1929 portion is ten bays wide. Both sections have subtle polychrome, wire-cut facing brick, and concrete and steel construction. The 1927 portion has a stepped-parapet roofline with concrete coping, while the mill’s 1929 part has a simple, crenellated roofline with the crenellation most defined above the entrances and along the stair tower at the southeast corner. Fenestration in both sections consists of large multi-paned steel frame windows, some of which have been bricked in on the first story. The bays are defined by projecting brick pilasters with stone caps. A water table of curved cast-concrete runs beneath each window bay. The rear elevation features the same windows and pilasters. The first story bay on the southeast end of the rear (southwest) elevation is of glass block. Restrained decorative elements include: simple door surrounds of single rows of headers with concrete corner blocks; diamond-shaped concrete panels; date stones set in both the 1927 and 1929 sections; stone and concrete window sills; stone pediments above the main entrances in both sections engraved with “NEBEL KNITTING CO.;” and decorative copper canopies sheltering the two doorways in the 1929 portion.

Historical Background

The Nebel Knitting Company was established in Charlotte in 1923 by William Nebel (1887-1971), a native of Germany and third-generation hosiery knitter. Nebel emigrated to the United States in 1905, and worked in several textile concerns in New York and New Jersey before moving to Charlotte to launch his own company. A full-fledged knitter since the age of twelve, Nebel was an innovator in hosiery styles, colors, and patterns, and held at least sixteen structural and design patents (Nebel Knitting Company Collection).

The Nebel Knitting Company prospered and expanded its production during the 1920s. From the first operation, with two sets of machinery located on the second floor of a small building on East Kingston Street, Nebel, in 1925, moved to a building at 1822-24 South Boulevard, in the industrial sector of Charlotte’s Dilworth neighborhood. This building still stands, though substantially altered and adaptively reused for shops and a restaurant. In 1927, further expansion of the business led to the construction of a new and larger Nebel Knitting Mill, near the middle of the 100 block of West Worthington Avenue. In 1929, this facility was more than doubled in size, creating the main plant that dominates the southwest corner of West Worthington and Camden Road.

William Nebel commissioned Richard C. Biberstein, noted Charlotte architect and engineer, to design both sections of the 1927-1929 mill complex (Nebel Knitting Company Collection). Biberstein (1859-1931) specialized in mill architecture and was reputed to have designed more cotton mills in the Carolina Piedmont than any other individual (Huffman 1984). Biberstein studied mechanical engineering at Worcester (Massachusetts) Polytechnic Institute between 1879 and 1882. He moved to Charlotte in 1887, and worked as a draftsman-engineer for the Charlotte Machine Company before gaining employment with Stuart W. Cramer in 1902. Cramer’s engineering firm designed and built many mills in this region, including the 1903 Highland Park No. 3 (National Register 1989). About 1905, Biberstein went into business for himself as a mill engineer and architect with offices in the Piedmont Building on Tryon Street. His career blossomed with the textile industry in this region. Among the mills Biberstein designed were the Lancaster (South Carolina) Cotton Mill, the Boger and Crawford Mill in Lincoln County, the Mooresville Cotton Mills, the Union Cotton Mill in Mount Holly, the Hudson Cotton Mills and the Dixon Mills in Gaston County, and the Larkwood Hosiery Mill in North Charlotte. Biberstein also designed other mills for Nebel, including one in Jacksonville, Florida (Huffman 1984).

When R. C. Biberstein died in 1931, his architecture firm, which still exists under the name Biberstein, Bowles, Meacham and Reed, was taken over by his son, Herman V. Biberstein (1893-1966. It was H. V. Biberstein who designed the final expansion of the Nebel Knitting Mill, an Art Moderne wing completed at a cost of about $150,000 in 1946 (Charlotte News, December 12, 1945). This addition, which is not included in the present nomination, was designed essentially as a separate building, attached to the 1927 portion by a covered passageway for trucks. Subsequently, this truck passage was walled in. As part of the renovation in progress, the roof and walls that joined the two sections of the mill have been removed.

The largest and most productive hosiery concern in Mecklenburg County, the Nebel Knitting Mill, by World War II, employed approximately 350 workers at thirty-eight machines for producing nylon full-fashioned stockings. During the 1940s, the company began an aggressive national advertising campaign, including layouts in fashion magazines such as Vogue and Seventeen. The company also followed the lead of other large textile concerns of the Carolinas and maintained an office in the Empire State Building. A 1953 newspaper article on the Nebel Mill stated that the factory’s production ranked it “among the largest hosiery mills in the Southeast.” The article proclaimed that “Nebel and nylons are two words often spoken by the nation’s retail merchants” (The Charlotte News, November 14, 1953). By 1968, the Nebel company employed almost 600 operatives and produced approximately two million dozen pairs of hosiery annually (Knitting Industry 1968). The Nebel Knitting Mill remained in operation until 1968, when it was acquired by Chadbourn, Inc., a Charlotte-based hosiery and apparel manufacturer. The building was last used by the Mecklenburg Manufacturing Company, producers of children’s knitwear (Van Hecke 1989). This firm closed its doors in 1989. The property is currently owned by Old Spaghetti Warehouse, Inc. of Garland, Texas. This company is renovating the 1927-1929 building for use as a restaurant. The 1946 addition stands vacant, and plans for this building are currently undecided.

Completed between 1927 and 1929, the (former) Nebel Knitting Mill is significant as a tangible reminder of Charlotte’s hosiery manufacturing, which rose to prominence during the post-World War I period. The growth of knit-goods manufacturing in the 1920s and early 1930s reflected the diversification of the textile industry, which ventured into new areas of production in efforts to survive the postwar decline in production, as well as to meet the growing demand for women’s full-fashioned hose (Hall, et al. 1987, 237-288; Manufacturers Record 1926, 49-50; 1929, 80-81). By 1931, there were thirty-two hosiery mills in Burlington, North Carolina, and sixteen plants in High Point (Hall, et al. 1987, 255). The status of Charlotte as a textile center and the boom town of the Carolinas in the 1920s made it an attractive location for full-fashioned hosiery mills. The city contained five hosiery mills by the early 1930s, concentrated along the Southern Railroad corridor in Dilworth’s industrial section: Larkwood Hosiery Mill; Hudson Silk Hosiery Mill; Charlotte Knitting Mill; Okey Hosiery Mill; and the Nebel Knitting Mill (Charlotte City Directory 1935). The Nebel mill, which had expanded and relocated to its present site directly north of the Southern Railroad tracks in 1927-1929, was the largest of this group.

The demand for form-fitting hose brought unprecedented income to hosiery employees, whose real earnings rose about thirty-five percent between 1923 and 1929. The vast majority of hosiery workers were highly skilled, and the labor was physically easier and cleaner than most work in the cotton mills. Hosiery mills produced none of the cotton dust that caused brown lung nor the cotton lint that led to the derogatory nickname “linthead.” As employees with comparatively high wages and prestige, hosiery operatives rarely lived in mill villages; and typical of the hosiery companies in Charlotte and the region, the Nebel mill did not include an affiliated village. Rather, its workers dwelled in a variety of neighborhoods, commuting to work by automobile or by the trolley, which ran down South Boulevard, near the cluster of hosiery mills there (Nebel Knitting Company Collection).

Even during the Depression, the region’s hosiery concerns continued to operate at a steady pace, forming an oasis of prosperity in the sluggish textile industry” (Hall, et. al. 1987, 255; McGregor 1965, 6-7). The Nebel mill, indeed, ran steadily throughout the 1930s, and according to William Nebel, his firm never experienced a year with a financial loss (Nebel Knitting Company Collection).

Bibliography

Biberstein Collection. Architectural plans, building specifications, correspondence relating to the Bibersteins’ firms work for William Nebel. The Collection is available at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Special Collections, Charlotte, NC.

Charlotte News. Charlotte, North Carolina. 1945, 1953.

Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, et al. 1987. Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Hanchett, Thomas W. 1986. “Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods: Growth of a New South City, 1850-1930. An Unpublished manuscript available at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Landmarks Commission, Charlotte, NC.

Hill’s Charlotte City Directory. Richmond, Virginia: Hill Directory Company. 1922, 1923-1924, 1929, 1935.

Huffman, William H. 1984. “Survey and Research Report on the Biberstein House.” Unpublished report on file at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Landmarks Commission, Charlotte, NC.

Insurance Map of Charlotte, North Carolina. 1929. New York: Sanborn Insurance Company.

Manufacturers Record. 1926, 1929.

McGregor, C. H. 1965. The Hosiery Manufacturing Industry in North Carolina and its Marketing Problems. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Graduate School of Business, Research Paper 15.

Nebel Knitting Company Collection. Memos, newspaper clippings pertaining to the Nebel Knitting Company in Charlotte. The Collection is available at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Special Collections, Charlotte, NC

Sieg, Elva. 1968. “Success Formula of Knitter, 81, is Work Plus Talent.” Knitting Industry. 8 (1968): 49,56.

Van Hecke, M. S. “Old Knitting Plant Bows Out.” The Charlotte Observer. August 10, 1989.