This report was written on 23 October 1992

1. Name and location of property: The property known as the Morgan School in the Cherry community is located at 500 South Torrence Street in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

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

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
Education Center, 701 East Second Street
Charlotte, North Carolina 28202

Telephone: (704) 379-7000

Morgan School Tax Parcel Number: 125-225-02

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 the Morgan School, Tax Parcel Number 125-225-02 is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 1590 on page 347.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Frances P. Alexander.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Frances P. Alexander.

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

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and culture importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Morgan School does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: 1) Morgan School was constructed in 1925 and opened in 1927; 2) the school is an important institutional landmark in the African-American community of Cherry and is one of the few such historical landmarks to remain in the neighborhood; 3) the school is associated with the history of education for African-Americans; and 4) Morgan School is the work of an important regional architect, Louis H. Asbury, one of the first professional architects in Charlotte and a founding member of the North Carolina Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and association: The Commission contends that the architectural description by Frances P. Alexander included in this report demonstrates that the Morgan School meet 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. However, this building is tax-exempt. The current appraised value of Morgan School is $359,650 (improvement only). The Morgan School property is zoned R22MF.

Date of Preparation of this Report: 23 October 1992

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill & Frances P. Alexander
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission
East Trade Street
Charlotte, North Carolina

Telephone: (704) 376-9115

The Morgan School was constructed in 1925 to serve as an elementary school for the African-American community of Cherry. Located in the center of the neighborhood, the school is sited on a corner lot across from Morgan Park, around which the commercial and institutional activities of the community are oriented. Morgan School serves as an architectural and institutional focal point of this model planned community.

The Cherry neighborhood was created by local planter, John Springs Myers, on a portion of his 1,000 acre cotton plantation, then located southeast of Charlotte. The Myers plantation later formed the nucleus of the white streetcar suburb of Myers Park. Predating the affluent, neighboring subdivision by twenty years, the Cherry community was platted in 1891 as a separate town outside the city limits of Charlotte. Myers’s motivation in establishing Cherry was, at least in part, benevolent, and his family had long been instrumental in local philanthropy for blacks. The inclusion of institutional, recreational, and commercial facilities as well as landscaping in the plan for Cherry reflected then current ideas of proper community development, but such features were rarely found in working class, black neighborhoods. One of the most unusual aspects of this planned community was the provision of relatively inexpensive lots for sale in addition to rental property. By the time Morgan School was constructed in the mid-1920s, more than 60% of the Cherry residents owned their homes.¹ This degree of home ownership is particularly noteworthy considering that the occupational composition of Cherry typified the urban working class.² The inhabitants of Cherry were largely unskilled or semi-skilled urban workers, and few, if any, could have been classified as middle class. Cherry thus offered the working class an alternative to the small, crowded alley dwellings of the center city.

Along with the construction of rental housing and the platting of lots for sale, the Myers family planned churches, schools, a neighborhood park, and tree-lined streets for Cherry. It is not known when the park was created, but Morgan Park was one of five parks administered by the City Parks and Recreation Commission at its establishment in 1927, and Morgan Park was the first city park to serve an African-American neighborhoods. By World War I, the street system of Cherry had been fully developed with Luther, Baxter, and Main streets extending east to Providence Road, and after the war, the Myers family provided land for the construction of a school near the center of the community as well as another tract for a playground adjacent to the park. John Springs Myers died in 1925, the year the contract was let for Morgan School, and the administration of the community passed to Myers’s children. Myers’ son, Rawlinson Myers, apparently supervised much of the early development of the area.⁴ From circa 1914 to the 1950s, the only alteration to the neighborhood boundaries occurred when Queens Road was constructed on the east side of the community. Otherwise, there were no additional streets or amenities added under the administration of the Myers children.

By the 1950s, Cherry was no longer isolated on the edge of the city, but rather had become one of the center city neighborhoods. Development pressures increased, particularly after road construction projects began to infringe on the boundaries of Cherry, and the opening of Charlottetown Mall in 1958 created commercial development pressure. Built in the 1940s, Independence Boulevard, the first expressway in the city, cut through the northern edge of Cherry, and Kings Drive, built along the western border, served as a link between Myers Park and the new expressway. Brevard Myers and John Dwelle, grandsons of J.S. Myers, began to consolidate their holdings in Cherry during the 1950s, and home ownership dropped to 17% by the 1970.⁵ By the postwar period, many residents were elderly, and a number of their children and grandchildren had migrated to northern cities. Although Myers and Dwelle had plans for at least partial redevelopment of Cherry, Myers successfully campaigned against the wholesale clearance of the community under urban renewal plans which eliminated the neighborhoods of Greenville, Brooklyn, and First and Third Wards. Spared because its housing was some of the least substandard in the city, Cherry was one of the few black neighborhoods to remain after the urban renewal era. By the late 1960s, Cherry residents began to organize to assume more control over their neighborhood. The Cherry Community Organization was formed and bought out the holdings of J.S. Myers’s grandsons, Brevard Myers and John Dwelle. The organization continues to buy properties from the city for rehabilitation and collects rents on the remaining city-owned properties. In 1985, the first new construction in Cherry was begun since Brevard Myers stopped building rental property in 1960. Although surrounding redevelopment and construction has compromised the margins of Cherry, the historic core of the community where the Morgan School is located remains intact.

The Morgan School, named after a member of the Myers family, serves as one of the institutional landmarks of this unique African-American neighborhood. The two story, red brick building was one of six schools built in the Charlotte area in 1925 and 1926 in consultation with Columbia University professors, Dr. Strayer and Dr. Engelhardt. Engelhardt and Strayer served as consultants in the planning stage of the project, apparently determining the functional requirements of the new facility.⁶ There is clear evidence, however, that local architect, Louis H. Asbury, Sr., was directly responsible for design of the school although the school system has no architectural plans for the facility.⁷ Entry Number 604 in the job book of Asbury’s firm dated March 14, 1925, notes a contract to construct a grammar school, the “Cherrytown School”⁸. In addition, Asbury designed other Charlotte schools during the interwar period, including Wilmore Elementary and probably the Plaza-Midwood School.⁹

A Charlotte native, Louis H. Asbury (1877-1975), received his professional training in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after graduating from Trinity College (now Duke University) in 1900. Before establishing his Charlotte practice in 1908, Asbury was associated with the nationally known firm of Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson, in either its New York or Boston office. Asbury, who was later joined by his son, Louis H. Asbury, Jr., had an extensive local and regional practice until his retirement in 1956. A founding member of the North Carolina Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Asbury, along with other early professional architects in the state, introduced a degree of sophistication and professionalism to Charlotte buildings. Favoring the Neoclassical and Gothic Revival styles popular both nationally and among his conservative clientele, Asbury’s designs covered a range of residential, commercial, and institutional buildings, including Myers Park Methodist Church, the former Mecklenburg County Courthouse, the Mayfair Hotel (now the Dunhill Hotel), and the Doctors’ Building. His work illustrates a new urbanity in the architecture of Charlotte, corresponding with the new importance of the city as a regional center for the textile and banking industries. His practice spanned two important periods of economic prosperity for the city during the post-World War I and post-World War II eras, and his buildings serve as reminders of these periods of urban development when Charlotte emerged as the largest city in the Carolinas.

Morgan School may have replaced an earlier wooden frame school, and the school may have been built as part of the statewide school construction campaigns which occurred during the 1920s as a result of grade separation and school consolidation. Measuring 180 feet x 120 feet, the lot on which the Morgan School was built was purchased from Mr. John Myers with funds from the bond election of 1924. The new school had ten classrooms, a principal’s office, and a nurse’s office. The cost of construction was $36,309.00. The first principal of Morgan was Mrs. E.R. Anderson, who was transferred from Biddleville School to the new facility in Cherry.¹¹ From its opening in 1927 until its closing in 1968, Morgan School was one of the smallest elementary schools in the city. Children who lived closer to the Myers Street School in Brooklyn were assigned to Morgan in order to fill classrooms ¹². The school was closed because of its limited space, but since the late 1960s, the facility has served several specialized services within the public school system. Currently, the school serves emotionally and behaviorally handicapped students.

NOTES

¹ “Cherry’s Struggle Creates Uproar,” Charlotte Observer, 22 July 1990, 10A.

² It has been assumed that many Cherry inhabitants served as household staff to the affluent neighboring Myers Park. While this arrangement may have evolved over time to some degree, domestic service was never the predominant occupation of Cherry residents. In addition, Cherry predates Myers Park by twenty years and the creation of a neighborhood of servants was not a motivation of the Myers family in establishing Cherry. Thomas Hanchett, Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods: The Growth of a New South City, 1850-1930 (Charlotte: Urban Institute of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1986), 11-13.

³ Hanchett, Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods, 11-15.

⁴ Hanchett, Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods, 11-17.

⁵ Hanchett, Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods, 11-20.

⁶ Interview by Marcia Hart with Thomas Hanchett, 21 October 1992.

⁷ The school system apparently does not have information on the school dating prior to 1971 (Marcia Hart interview with Oweeta Shands, Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System, 30 September 1992).

⁸ Job Book of Louis H. Asbury, Sr., from an interview with Marcia Hart, and the 1925 date of the log entry corresponds with the known construction period for Morgan School.

⁹ Interview with Marcia Hart, 20 October 1992.

¹⁰ “Louis Asbury: Builder of a City,” Charlotte Observer, 24 March 1975, 16; Julie Farnsworth, “Reflections of an Architect and His Work,” Fayetteville Observer, 21 February 1982, C-1.

¹¹ Interview with Marcia Hart, 20 October 1992.

¹² Hanchett, Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods, 11-15, Footnote No. 8.

Description

The Morgan School is located within the Cherry neighborhood, which is bounded roughly by Kings Drive to the west, a branch of Sugar Creek to the south, Queens Road to the east, and Independence Boulevard to the north. Facing east, the school is situated on a corner lot, measuring 180 feet x 200 feet, in the center of Cherry. Across the street from the school is Morgan Park, which occupies an entire city block. The school is surrounded by a grass yard on all sides, and directly to the rear is the Myers Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church. A service drive is located on the north side of the property.

Exterior

The school is a two story, red brick (laid in stretcher bond) building, with a rectangular plan, and a later cafeteria addition projecting from the northwest corner of the original building. The main building has a symmetrical facade, consisting of a central block flanked by projecting pavilions. The central entrance has a slight ogee arch with restrained, stepped, decorative, stone surrounds. The recessed, wooden, double doors are replacements, and the arched transom has been infilled. There are three concrete steps leading to the main entrance. The building has a molded stone cornice which delineates the stepped parapets of the three masses. Decorative concrete panels are located within the parapets. Molded terra cotta coping caps the parapets. A belt course of brick soldiers and headers forms a water table above the brick foundation. There are a variety of single, paired, and triple windows although no windows are located on the projecting pavilions. Decorative panels formed of brick headers, soldiers, and stretchers with concrete corner blocks visually break the solid walls of the pavilions. Most windows are nine-over-nine light, double hung, wooden sash. The window openings have brick flat arches, and the sills are also brick.

There are brick round-arched entrances located on the first floors of the side elevations (north and south). On the south elevation, this entrance leads to a recessed porch from which the stairwell rises. On the north, the round-arch entrance and door is flush with the exterior wall, but leads to a matching porch and stairwell. The doors on both elevations are modern replacements, and the transoms have been infilled with wooden panels. These openings are constructed of brick arches with concrete corner blocks and keystones. Concrete steps flanked by brick and concrete retaining walls lead to the concrete porches at these side entrances. On the south side, there is a small brick and concrete retaining wall, approximately 2 feet tall, which extends from the steps along the walkway to the sidewalk. Above these side entrances, are square opening to the stairwell. These openings have brick flat arches and concrete sills. Decorative brick and concrete panels, identical to those on the facade, are found on the side elevations. A single service door leading to the basement is located at the west corner of the south elevation, reached by a short concrete staircase. A brick retaining wall, capped by concrete, runs from this corner of the building to the sidewalk. The rear (west) elevation of the main building contains a series of symmetrically placed single and double windows, and because of the slope of the land, the basement level accommodates full-size, nine-over-nine light, double hung sash windows below the brick water table. At either end of this elevation, there are windows which break the alignment of the classroom windows. One set of these flanking windows opens to the boys’ and girls’ restrooms. These windows are eight-over-twelve light, double hung sash with brick flat arches. The other set of single windows provides light to the stairwell landing between the first and second floors. These windows are twelve-over-twelve light, double hung sash capped by a multiple-light fanlight. A concrete keystone and concrete corner blocks delineate the fanlight.

A one story, brick (laid in American bond) cafeteria building, with rectangular plan, has been added at the northwest corner of the main school building. A short, projecting, brick corridor connects the cafeteria with the main building. The door to the corridor from the main building appears original and may have led outside prior to this addition. Double doors on the east elevation of the projecting corridor lead from the outside allows direct access to the cafeteria. The doors have fixed lights in the upper halves as well as a fixed light transom. The corridor also has a single, steel sash window south of the exterior door. The cafeteria addition has a flat roof with parapet delineated by a brick stringcourse. The parapet is lined with concrete coping. There are banks of large, steel sash, factory windows, with brick sills, on all elevations of the addition. On the south elevation of the cafeteria building, there two double doors reached by concrete steps. One of the paired doors leads to the cafeteria dining room, and the other allows access to the kitchen. Iron pipe railings line the steps. Each door has six fixed lights in the upper half as well as a fixed light transom. The rear (west) elevation of the cafeteria addition has a brick and concrete loading dock, roughly three feet above grade. The dock is covered by a flat, composition roof supported by slender iron posts and railing. On the north side of this service dock is a screened storage area. The service dock is connected to the kitchen by a double door with the same fixed lights in the upper halves.

Interior

The first floor interior has a truncated T-shaped plan. A short hall leads from the main entrance to a long (north-south) hall along which the four classrooms are located. Restrooms, located at either end of the hall next to the side exits, serve the entire building. A principal’s office and nurse’s (now secretary’s) office flank the short entrance hall. A storage room and a staff bathroom are located along the east wall of the long hall. The first floor halls have the original hardwood floors (carpet was recently removed), plaster walls, and simple molded, wooden door surrounds, baseboards, and wall moldings. The hall doors to the offices and classrooms are original and have six-light windows in the upper halves and panelled lower halves. Within the rooms, there are solid, three-panelled doors, all with original three-light transoms. Some of the transoms are still operable. Steam radiators also remain intact. A dropped acoustical tile ceiling, with inset lighting, has been added in the halls. In both the secretary’s and principal’s office, the original plaster walls, wooden moldings, and three-panelled closet doors are intact. The only notable alteration is these two offices is the carpet, which apparently covered the hall floors until its recent removal. It is thus assumed that the original hardwood floors in these offices remain. A small staff bathroom is located between the secretary’s office and the hall and can be reached by either side. The bathroom has its original porcelain sink and toilet, marble baseboard, and three-panelled doors.

On the first floor, the classroom which has undergone the most modification is located in the southeast corner. The room has been subdivided by drywall partition walls into a conference room from which five small staff offices are reached. The floors are linoleum, and the doors to the offices are of recent vintage. A dropped acoustical tile ceiling with inset lighting has also been added. In the conference room, there is an inset cupboard, with panelled doors and molded surrounds, remaining on the north wall. The original windows are intact within the various offices. The student restrooms are located on the west side at either end of the hall. The walls and floors are ceramic tile, which appears to be post-World War II. The metal partitions between units may be original, and the posts of the partitions are capped with decorative elements. Also along the west side of the building are two classrooms. The southwestern room has been remodeled somewhat, with the partitioning of three rooms along the north wall, and the addition of a linoleum floor and acoustical tile ceiling. Modern wooden doors provide access to these three rooms. The interior room nearest the window, however, incorporates the former cloak room, and the shelves and hooks are extant. In addition, the original moldings, plaster walls, inset cupboards, and windows remain intact on the west, south, and east walls of the room. The other first floor classrooms, located in the northeast and northwest corners, have had some alteration, but the original character of the rooms is retained. In both rooms, the wooden moldings, plaster walls, large windows, built-in bulletin boards and blackboards, and cloak rooms remain. As in all first floor classrooms, both have had linoleum floors added, and in the northeast classroom, the two three-panelled doors to the cloak rooms have been replaced. In this room, a sink and counter unit has also been added along the west wall although the unit appears largely freestanding and probably would have required little destruction to physical fabric. In the northwestern room, there has been little alteration except for the acoustical tile ceiling and the linoleum floors.

Replacement double doors at either end lead to the recessed entrance porches and stairwells. On the west side of these porches, replacement double doors lead to the enclosed stairwells. The round-arch transoms above the stairwell doors have all been infilled with brick. The stairwells have concrete floors and stairs, brick walls, and solid, concrete-encased stair railings. At the landing between floors, the stairwells also contain single, twelve-over-twelve light, wooden sash windows.

Double doors lead from the stairwell to the second floor porches which provide access to the second floor hall. Within this space, there is a large, square opening. The second floor has a single north-south hall from which classrooms radiate. The classrooms all have their original plaster walls, plaster walls, wooden baseboards and moldings, and three-panelled doors leading to cloakrooms. The classroom in the northeastern corner also has a ceiling of wood-composition tile, which appears to have been added after World War II. The classroom in the northwest corner has the same original and altered features, but in addition, the doors to the cloak room are replacements. The rooms in the center of the west side and the southwest corner were inaccessible, but it is likely that they retain the same original features. The room in the southeast corner has the original plaster walls and wooden moldings and doors found in the other rooms. In addition, an inset cupboard with panelled wooden doors is located in the northwest corner of this room, and although not completely visible, it is probably identical to the one found in the remodeled conference room on the first floor. A linoleum floor and dropped acoustical tile ceiling are the only alterations in this room. The middle room on the east side is the library. This room has a linoleum floor and a wood-composition tile ceiling. In place of a cloak room, the library has three storage closets, and the door to one of these has been removed. Beneath and between the windows are original, built-in bookcases.

The stairwells also lead to a basement floor. There are two adjoining classrooms in the basement. These classrooms have concrete floors, plaster walls, and molded wooden door and window surrounds. Dropped acoustical tile ceilings, with suspended fluorescent lighting, have been added to these classrooms as well.

There is an exterior entrance on the north elevation to a separate boiler room and coal storage area, which are inaccessible from the classrooms. These service areas have brick walls and concrete floors. The coal chute has been brick-infilled, but the segmental-arched doorway between the two rooms contains a wooden, slatted frame to regulate the flow of coal to the boiler.

From the stairwell on the north side, an original door leads to a short hallway to the 1948 cafeteria addition. The door, with its multiple lights in the upper half and panelled lower half, predates this addition. The hall has concrete block walls and a concrete floor. The cafeteria has a large, open dining room divided from the kitchen facilities by a partition wall. The walls are concrete block, and there is a linoleum floor. The ceiling is covered in wood-composition tiles. Within the dining area, there is a slightly raised wooden dais situated along the interior partition wall. On the south side, there are double doors leading outside. The kitchen facilities are located along the west side. The kitchen has brick tile floors, plaster walls, and an acoustical tile ceiling with inset lighting. The counters and storage units do not appear original. On the north side, there is a small serving room with a pass-through opening to the dining room. Along the south wall are several storage closets with two-panelled doors. A restroom, which appears original, is located in the southwest corner of the kitchen. On the west wall are double doors leading to the service dock.

Conclusion

The design of the Morgan School typifies early twentieth century school construction. The formality and symmetry of its design reflect Beaux Arts classicism and the use of restrained Revival detailing around the entrance was a common decorative feature. The location of the school on a corner lot in the center of the community also illustrates early twentieth century ideas of urban planning and model community development. Most original fabric is intact and in good condition with the exception of exterior door replacement and transom infill. Interior alterations, such as the addition of dropped acoustic tile ceilings, would have required little destruction to historic fabric although the original ceiling is not visible. The plan is unchanged, and the school continues to serve its original function although less specifically tied to its immediate community.

Bibliography

“A.S.I.D. Announces Preservation Project,” North Carolina Preservation 34, no. 8 (1982): 2.

“Cherry Community,” Files of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Cherry Folks to Buy Out Landlords,” Charlotte News, 20 December 1977, B-1. Vertical Files, Carolina Room, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library.

“Cherry’s Struggle Creates Uproar,” Charlotte Observer, 22 July 1990, 10A. Vertical Files, Carolina Room, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library.

Farnsworth, Julie. “Reflections of an Architect and His Work,” Fayetteville Observer, 21 February 1982, C-1.

Hanchett, Thomas W. Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods: The Growth of a New South City, 1850-1930. Charlotte: Urban Institute of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1986.

Harding, Harry P. The Charlotte City Schools. Charlotte: typescript by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System, 1966.

Interview with Marcia Hart, 21 October 1992.

Interview with Richard Cansler, Principal, Morgan School, 21 October, 1992.

“Louis Asbury: Builder of a City,” Charlotte Observer, 24 March 1975, 16.

“Louis H. Asbury, Retired Architect,” Charlotte News, 19 March 1975.

“Louis H. Asbury, Sr., 97 Architect of the Courthouse,” Charlotte Observer, 20 March 1975, 8A.

“Morgan School.” Files of the Department of Cultural Resources, Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Pressures From Within, Without Threatening Cherry’s Survival,” Charlotte Observer, 28 January 1990, 1, 6. Vertical Files, Carolina Room, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library.

Randolph, Elizabeth, S., ed. An African-American Album. Charlotte: Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, 1992.

Click here to view Charlotte Observer Article on the Mecklenburg Mill

This report was written on July 3, 1986

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Old Mecklenburg Mill is located on N. Davidson St., just opposite its intersection with 37th St., in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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

Robert Stark and Wife, Ava E. Stark
c/o Ava Industries Inc.
401 E. 36th St.
Charlotte, NC 28205

Telephone: (704) 376-2680

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 which depicts the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent deed to this property is recorded in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 4327, page 816. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is: 091-101-04.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Thomas W. Hanchett.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Mr. Thomas W. Hanchett.

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

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Old Mecklenburg Mill does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: 1) built in 1903-05, the Old Mecklenburg Mill is one of Charlotte’s best-preserved early textile mills; 2) the Old Mecklenburg Mill is an important historic landmark in North Charlotte, one of Charlotte’s most significant textile mill districts at the turn of the century; and 3) the Old Mecklenburg Mill offers dramatic evidence of the era when textile manufacturing was a leading component of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s economy.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural description included in this report demonstrates that the property known as the Old Mecklenburg Mill 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 “historic property.” The current appraised value of the improvements on the entire tract, which includes the nearby Old Johnston Mill, is $168,590. The current appraised value of the 7.581 acres of land is $128,790. The total appraised value of the property is $297,380. The property is zoned I2.

Date of Preparation of this Report: July 3, 1986

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
1225 S. Caldwell St.
Charlotte, NC 28203

Telephone: (704) 376-9115

Thomas W. Hanchett and Dr. William H. Huffman

The Mecklenburg Mill is a two-story brick textile factory located in the North Charlotte mill district on the main line of the Southern Railway. The plant was built 1903-1905, in the midst of Mecklenburg County’s heyday as the number two textile manufacturing county in North Carolina. In 1986 the building is little changed from its 1910s appearance, and is of historic importance as one of Charlotte’s best-preserved early textile mills.

Charlotte: Textile Boom Town
Though all the spinning mills that once hummed around the city are now silent, textile manufacturing represents a major historical force in the growth of Charlotte. Charlotte was first a trading center for the cotton farmers of the southern North Carolina Piedmont region, starting in the 1850s when the earliest railroads reached the city. Following the Civil War, leaders across the South began a drive for a “New South” based on manufacturing rather than farming. “Bring the Mills to the Cotton!” became the battle cry. In 1881 Charlotte’s first mill opened to spin cotton into thread.¹ After that initial factory, Mecklenburg’s industrial growth was nothing short of meteoric. By 1900 Mecklenburg County boasted sixteen mills with a combined total of 94,392 spindles and 1,456 looms, making it North Carolina’s second most important cotton-spinning county, following neighboring Gaston County.²

Mecklenburg remained among the state’s top three textile counties at least into the mid 1920s.³ By that time the textile belt of the Piedmont South — stretching from Virginia through the Carolinas into Georgia — was pulling ahead of New England to become the world’s main cotton-manufacturing region. North Carolina was ranked as the number one cotton-spinning state in America.⁴ Charlotte emerged as a center not only of manufacturing but also for bankers, wholesalers, machinery dealers and others serving the vast textile region. In 1880, before the first mill opened, Charlotte was a modest town of 7,094 people, the fifth-largest urban place in the Carolinas.⁵ By the end of the 1920s it had grown to 82,675 and taken the lead as the largest city in North and South Carolina.⁶

The Mecklenburg Mill: Early Years
The Mecklenburg Mill opened at the height of this textile boom, part of the new North Charlotte mill district located along North Davidson street on the Southern Railway just outside the city. The district was begun in 1903 around the huge Highland Park #3 mill owned by William E. Holt, Jr. of Alamance County, North Carolina, and Charles Worth Johnston of Charlotte.⁷ Highland Park #3 was North Carolina’s largest mill when it opened in 1904.⁸ Eventually North Charlotte held four major mills, workers’ housing and a commercial area, plus several smaller textile-related concerns including the factory of the Grinnell Company, a leading supplier of sprinkler fire-prevention systems to Southern mills.

On March 18, 1903, less than a month after plans for the Highland Park #3 were announced, three North Carolina businessmen chartered the Mecklenburg Cotton Mills Company. Charlotte investors Robert L. Tate and S. B. Alexander, Jr., subscribed to 100 and 50 shares of stock respectively. B. Lawrence Duke of Durham took the remaining 100 shares. Duke was scion of the famous North Carolina tobacco family, the son of millionaire James B. Duke’s half-brother Brodie Duke. In 1903 James B. Duke was just becoming interested in the hydro-electric potential of the Charlotte area, an interest that would lead to the creation of Duke Power, and it may be that the nephew’s textile investment and the uncle’s electrical explorations were in some way connected.

On May 25 of the same year Holt, Johnston and their partner J.S. Spencer sold the Mecklenburg Cotton Mill Company land for a mill and village, to be located north of the Highland Park #3 plant.¹⁰ In August of 1904 the Charlotte Observer wrote:

“Within a few more months North Charlotte will be one of the busiest and most populous parts of the city or suburbs. The new plant of the Highland Park Manufacturing is nearly ready … and the new Mecklenburg Mills … will soon be ready to start up.”¹¹

When the Sanborn Company of New York mapped Charlotte in early 1905, it noted that the Mecklenburg Mill facility was scheduled to open in summer.¹² The main section of the mill was a two-story structure with a brick exterior and a timber frame. Carding took place in the basement, spooling, warping and weaving on the first floor, and spinning on the second. A stair-tower slightly higher than the main block projected from the front of the main facade, and a similar elevator tower stood at the rear. A one-and-a-half-story boiler room wing was attached to the north side of the building. South of the building was a separate one-story cotton warehouse of wooden construction. The mill village, composed of one-story wooden single-family cottages, stretched out along what are now East 37th Street and Mercury Street in front of the building. Just north of the village was a mill pond (now drained). The pond supplied water to a tall, freestanding steel water tower in front of the mill, which in turn fed the factory’s Grinnell sprinkler system.

A report by the North Carolina Department of Labor in 1910 summed up the statistics of the facility.¹³ The mill had 12,000 spindles, 300 looms, and 26 cards, ranking it among Charlotte’s mid-sized textile factories. A 450 horsepower steam engine powered the plant. The Mecklenburg consumed a million pounds of raw cotton per year and produced printed cloth sold through J.P. Stevens & Co., Agents, of Boston and New York.

The only addition to the mill building occurred sometime between 1905 and 1911.¹⁴ The owners attached a one-story “cotton room” wing to the south side of the plant. Its timber frame, brick walls, large arched windows, and wooden cornice matched the original structure precisely.

Most textile workers in this era were rural folk who came to the mill villages from Piedmont farms and Blue Ridge hollows. An article in the Southern Textile Bulletin, December 25, 1919, gave a picture of life they found in the Mecklenburg Mill village:

“Approximately 175 operatives and helpers are employed by the Mecklenburg Mills Company…. The mill village is most picturesque and beautiful in its natural setting of native trees, with a pretty little lake nearby …. There are 53 neat, attractive cottages in the village [ ,]… equipped with electric lights and water. The management has under consideration the building of a number of new and modern cottages in the pretty grove that overlooks the lake (now Patterson, Herrin, Warp and Card streets)…. Each cottage has a large space for a vegetable garden and many fine vegetables are raised both in summer and winter, also a good quantity of beans, peas, corn, etc are canned in the summer. There is a piggery where the mill community keep their hogs in a segregated spot, and many hundreds of pounds of pork is raised each year. Of course there are some chickens in the village but these are not encouraged for they are always liable to get out and do damage in the gardens. There are quite a number of cows that furnish plenty of milk and butter, and these are kept in a perfectly sanitary stables away from the houses.”

The cheery tone of the article obscures the fact that workers in this mill, as elsewhere in the South, actually spent most of their waking hours in the hot and dusty factory. In the early years of this century, men, women, and children over 10 years old worked 10 to 12 hours each weekday, and six more hours on Saturday.

Later Years: A Struggle for Profitability
There is evidence that not long after its opening, the Mecklenburg Mill began to have financial troubles. Documents indicate that there was frequent turnover among principal stockholders in the late l910s and early 1920s.¹⁵ By 1922 J. D. Norwood was president and W.T. Bush secretary, and the firm’s official office was located in Salisbury, North Carolina.¹⁶ On October 17, 1923 Mecklenburg Mills declared bankruptcy, and in July of 1926 Mercury Mills, a Delaware-based corporation, bought the plant at a foreclosure sale.¹⁷

The factory became known as the Mercury Mill, and continues to be popularly known by that name today despite a string of later owners. Martel Mills, another Delaware outfit, bought the plant in 1929.¹⁸ On the eve of world War II the Johnston Mills Company acquired the factory and added it to their growing “Johnston Group” of mills, headquartered in the 16-story Johnston Building in downtown Charlotte.¹⁹ The Company was controlled by the family of North Charlotte founder Charles Worth Johnston, and among its holdings was massive Highland Park #3 Mill and the 1913 Johnston Mill, located on North Davidson Street just south of the Mecklenburg Mill.

In the early 1950s the Johnston Company reorganized its North Charlotte operations, selling off the mill houses to workers, and also donating money to build a community center, now known as the Johnston YMCA.²⁰ The company was able to operate profitably until the late 1960s, when it began to shut down plants. Highland Park #3 closed in 1969, and the Mecklenburg Mill stopped operations at about the same time.²¹

The Mecklenburg was used for storage, then stood vacant for several years as it passed through the hands of various investors. Chavis Textile Manufacturing of Gastonia bought it in 1975, and sold it in 1976 to Confederate Textile Machinery Inc., of Greenville, South Carolina.²² In August 1980 Robert and Ava Stark purchased the property.²³ Today Stark runs a spinning operation and a textile machinery repair service in the adjacent Johnston Mill, and he hopes to renovate the Mecklenburg Mill and expand it.

The Mecklenburg Mill has felt the effects of time and low maintenance. Its windows and doors are broken and some of the frames have rotted away. All machinery and equipment is gone, except for the Grinnell Sprinkler System. Yet the basic building is in good shape. Unlike most Charlotte mills, its windows were never bricked in, and it has experienced no additions and very little demolition since 1911. Only the Hoskins Mill, across town off Rozelles Ferry Road, rivals the Mecklenburg as a well-preserved early textile mill in “as-built” condition.

Because of its importance to the development of the North Charlotte area and to the neighborhood’s daily life for over six decades, because it symbolizes the significance of textile manufacturing in the growth of the city, and because of its high degree of preservation, the Mecklenburg Mill merits designation as a Charlotte Historic Property.

NOTES

¹ Dan L. Morrill, “A Survey of Cotton Mills in Charlotte, North Carolina” (Charlotte: Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission, I 981). William H. Huffman, “Charlotte Cotton Mills: Survey and Research Report” ( Charlotte: Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission, 1984). For more on the importance of cotton trade and manufacture to the growth of Charlotte see Thomas W. Hanchett, “Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods: The Growth of a New South City, 1850- 1930” ( 1986, unpublished manuscript in the files of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission).

² Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Printing for the State of North Carolina, 1900, pp. 176-81.

³ Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Printing for the State of North Carolina, 1900-1926. Title varies slightly. After 1926 the state stopped publishing detailed data.

⁴ Broadus Mitchell and George Sinclair Mitchell, The Industrial Revolution in the South ( Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1930), p. 29. In 1927 the South had 62% of the mills in the United States, and the value of North Carolina’s product surpassed that of former leader Massachusetts. United States Bureau of the Census, Nineteenth Census: 1970, vol. I, part 35, table 7.

⁵ United States Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census: 1940, “North and South Carolina: Number of Inhabitants,” table A.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Hanchett, “Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods,” Chapter 15.

⁸ Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Printing for the State of North Carolina, 1904, pp. 93-97. Designed by noted Charlotte inventor Stuart Cramer, the Highland Park #3 was also among the region first mills designed specifically for electric operation.

⁹ Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Record of Corporations Book I, p. 344.

¹⁰ Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Deed Book 1 79, p. 206.

¹¹ Charlotte Observer, August 4, 1904.

¹² Sanborn Company, “Charlotte, 1905” ( New York: Sanborn Company, 1905).

¹³ Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Department of Labor and Printing of the State of North Carolina, 1910, pp. 172-73, 1923.

¹⁴ Sanborn Company, “Charlotte, 1911” ( New York: Sanborn Company, 1911).

¹⁵ Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Record of Corporations Book 2, p. 390; Book 6, p. 458, Book 6, p. 518; Book 7, p. 101.

¹⁶ Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Record of Corporations Book 7, p. 101.

¹⁷ Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Deed Book 628, p. 554.

¹⁸ Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Deed Book 748, p. 1; Deed Book 846, p. 336. Martel was reorganized in December of 1933.

¹⁹ Johnston bought the mill November 24, 1941. Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Deed Book 1065, p. 279.

²⁰ Marjorie B. Young, ed., Textile Leaders of the South (Columbia, SC: James R. Young, 1963), pp. 110-1111, 767. One Hundredth Anniversary: Young Men’s Christian Association of Charlotte and Mecklenburg (Charlotte: Charlotte YMCA, 1974), p. 8. For house sales see for instance Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Deed Book 1633, pp. 367, 411.

²¹ Charlotte News, March 13, 1975, August 19, 1978, Charlotte Observer, March 14, 1975. Charlotte’s last working spinning mill was the Johnston, which closed in 1975.

²² Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Deed Book 3813, p. 366; Deed Book 3867, p. 640. 23.

²³ Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office: Deed Book 4327, p. 816.

Thomas W. Hanchett

Today the Mecklenburg Mill is among Charlotte’s best-preserved early textile factories, despite the fact that it has long been vacant. Except for a one-story south wing added before 1911, and for removal of the top story of the front tower, the brick and timber building remains much as it was built in 1903-05. The site also retains its original cotton warehouse, plus two small frame structures which housed fire-fighting equipment.

The Mecklenburg Mill is sited with the Southern Railroad at its rear (west) side and North Davidson Street at its front. The main block of the building is two-stories tall with a low-pitched gable roof. Large segmental-arched window openings divide the side facades into 9 bays and the front and rear facades into 17 bays. The rear facade differs slightly from the front in that it extends downward to provide windows for the basement level. At the edges of the building’s roof, heavy curved brackets support a cornice built up of wooden molding. On the south end of the building, just below the cornice, one may still read the words “Mecklenburg Mills Co.” painted on the wall. Walls are brick, alternating one course of headers with six courses of stretchers. The window arches are composed of three header courses. Each wooden window unit consists of a pair of nine-over-nine-pane double-hung sash windows, each with its own six-pane transom. The wood and glass of the windows and doors throughout the mill is badly deteriorated, but most of the original material remains. The only major exception is in the downstairs front windows, which have differently-shaped panes, and may not be original.

When the structure was built, towers were a popular feature of mill design. They provided a decorative architectural element, and also helped guard against the potential spread of fire by making stairs and elevators separate from the main building. The Mecklenburg Mill has a stair tower at the center of its front facade and a similar elevator tower at the rear. A 1919 photo from the Southern Textile Bulletin shows that the front tower was originally three-stories tall. Today the top story is gone but the rest of the tower survives in good condition. At the top, five courses of brick step outward to a course of limestone. Recessed panels with corbelled dentils at the top frame the windows and the window and door openings have an extra corbelled brick course in the arches. Stone steps lead to the front door. At the rear, the elevator tower has been more severely altered. It too is two-stories tall, and portions of its walls have been replaced with concrete-block and new brick.

At the south side of the main block is the one-story “Cotton Room” wing added sometime between 1905 and 1911. It is six bays long and four bays wide, with one of the end bays being a door. In its gabled roof, cornice, brickwork, and windows the wing matches the original structure exactly, indicating that it was probably the work of the same designer and builder.

At the north side of the main block is an asymmetrical one-story-and-basement wing. This collection of rooms originally held the steam boilers, engines, and belt shafts which powered the factory. Windows here are smaller than in the main structure. Near the northeast corner of the wing, a one-story extension holds the pump which transferred pond water to the water tower. At the north end of the wing is the tall, round, free standing smokestack, constructed of brick.

The interior of the mill is characterized by wide open spaces with no decoration and virtually no partitions. The brick walls around the windows are painted white, a color chosen to reflect the most light and thus give workers the best-lit working conditions. The main block and the one-story Cotton Room wing exemplify fire-resistant “standard mill construction” developed in New England at the behest of fire insurance companies at the end of the nineteenth century. The visitor might be surprised that wood is used for the columns, beams, and floors, but it consists of massive pieces of hardwood that are extremely slow to burn and will not bend in a hot fire as metal will. The first floor of the main block is a good place to see this construction. Three rows of round wooden columns run the length of the space, set on 10′ x 27′ centers, according to fire insurance maps. At the top of each column is a cast iron collar-plate. On the columns and collar-plates rest the huge beams that carry the second floor — solid timbers approximately 1′ x 2′. Resting on the beams is a thick sub-floor, which is covered by thinner floorboards. Running near the ceiling are the pipes and sprinklers of the Grinnell fire prevention system (which is controlled by valves located near the front of the basement).

This same construction is found with minor variations throughout the main block and Cotton Room wing. In the second story of the main block, the columns hold the angled roof beams. The main block originally had a full basement, where thick brick piers were substituted for most of the wooden columns. A brick wall across the basement separated it into a north half and a south half. Recently owner Robert Stark removed the flooring and beams above the south half and filled the basement with earth, taken from an excavation in front of the mill.

The mill’s one-story-and-basement north wing is built a bit differently. Here brick walls divide the space into three units. The most northerly unit originally held the coal-fired boilers of the steam power – plant. Today a wooden first floor extends over only half of the space, forming a balcony. Beyond the balcony is a huge coal-fired furnace of brick and metal, reached by steel catwalks. This is probably not part of the original steam power plant, but rather a later heating system. The next unit — between the boiler room and the main plant — is labeled as a “dynamo room” on early maps. In recent years this space seems to have been used for offices, and portions of wooden office partitions remain. Originally the space may have held two engines: an electric generator which ran the mill’s lighting system; and a second engine which provided power to the looms, cards and spinning frames by means of a system of belts and shafting throughout the mill. Early maps label the high-ceilinged third unit, adjacent to the engine room as a “beltway.” Today a wooden floor separates it into a main level and a basement level. It is possible that this area was once completely open, and held the wide leather belts which connected the steam engine to the metal power shafts on each floor of the main block. Unfortunately, all traces of engines and shafting are gone today.

Inside the front stair tower is the single stair which serves the main block. It is of wood with a solid tongue-and-groove balustrade. A wooden lattice-work door seals off the topmost landing. Inside the rear elevator tower, the wooden elevator gates may still be seen behind slicing sheet-metal fire doors. The Charlotte-manufactured elevator cage is intact, complete with a cast-metal control panel carrying the raised letters “PARK ELEVATOR CHARLOTTE N.C.” The elevator motor is gone.

The mill site contains notable structures in addition to the main building. Behind the mill is a small railroad trestle where coal cars unloaded. South of the mill is the original cotton warehouse. It is a one-story board-and-batten structure with sliding doors. A red brick firewall, extending above the roof, divides the building into two unequal bays. In front of the cotton warehouse and in front of the mill are a pair of tiny “German” sided wooden buildings, each about the size and shape of a outhouse. These date from the mill’s earliest years (one is shown in the 1919 Southern Textile Bulletin photograph) and still perform their original function — holding spools of firehose connected by underground pipes to the Grinnell system. Across North Davidson Street, beyond the mill site proper, the old Mecklenburg Mill water tower and many of the workers’ cottages can still be seen.

This report was written on December 2, 1981

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Mecklenburg Investment Company Building is located at 233-237 S. Brevard St. in Charlotte, NC.

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

The Mecklenburg Investment Co.
233 S. Brevard St.
Charlotte, NC 28202

Telephone: Not listed

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 which depicts the location o the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the Property: The most recent deed to this property is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 454 at page 21. The current tax parcel number of the property is 125-024-06.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property by Dr. William H. Huffman, Ph.D.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property by Jack O. Boyte, A.I.A.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria set forth in N.C.G.S. 18OA-399.4:

a. Significance in terms of its history, architecture and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Mecklenburg Investment Company Building does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: 1) the building, erected in 1921-22, was the first office building in Charlotte built exclusively by and for black professionals; 2) the Mecklenburg Investment Company had some of the most prominent black citizens of Charlotte among its officers, including such notable local persons as A. E. Spears, C. R. Blake, and Thad L. Tate; 3) the building is one of the very few remnants of old Second Ward or Brooklyn, a major turn-of-the-century black neighborhood, which survives; and 4) the intricate exterior brickwork and the original interior features demonstrate that the structure possesses architectural significance.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association: The Commission judges that the architectural included in this report demonstrates that the property known as the Mecklenburg Investment Company Building meets this criterion.

9. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply annually for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes “historic property.” The current Ad Valorem tax appraisal of the entire .083 acre tract is $25,200. The Ad Valorem tax appraisal on the improvements is $16,650. The total Ad Valorem tax appraisal is $41,850. The most recent annual Ad Valorem tax bill on the property was $764.59. The building contains 10,164 base square feet.

Date of preparation of this report: December 2, 1981

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill, Director
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
3500 Shamrock Dr.
Charlotte, NC 28215

Telephone: (704) 332-2726

Dr. William H. Huffman

In May, 1922, construction began on a building which was unique in the city of Charlotte. The MIC Building was the first structure planned and executed by some of the black leaders of the community to accommodate black businesses, professional offices, civic and fraternal organizations. It was built as an anchor for the business and social activities of the former Brooklyn community of Second Ward by the Mecklenburg Investment Company, an investment group organized for that purpose and from which the building received its name.

The MIC was incorporated on May 6, 1921, with Mr. C. R. Blake, Sr., as president; Mr. A. E. Spears, vice-president; Thad L. Tate, treasurer; and Dr. A. J. Williams, a dentist, secretary.⁴ The Board of Directors was composed of the above officers and eight other business and professional leaders of the black community. In addition to dentists, doctors, lawyers, other professionals and businessmen, the shareholders also included a number of members of the Johnson C. Smith University faculty. Some of the notable figures involved in organizing the MIC included the following two leaders of the community:

Thad L. Tate (1865-1951), who owned and operated the Uptown Barber Shop for many years and was quite active in the business and civic affairs of the city, which included many efforts to improve the quality of life in the black community. Through his initiatives and connections with white business and political leaders, among them Gov. Cameron Morrison, Thad Tate helped establish the Brevard Street branch of the Public Library and a local branch of the YMCA for blacks, and was instrumental in founding the Morrison Training School for black youths in Hoffman, NC, where a building is named in his honor.⁶

Dr. J. T. Williams (1859-1924), an original investor and member of the board, was a prominent and respected educator, physician, businessman and public servant. In 1882, at the age of 23, Dr. Williams was the Assistant Principal of the Charlotte Graded School, from which he resigned to study medicine. Six years later, in 1886, he became one of the first three black physicians licensed to practice medicine in North Carolina, and built a prosperous surgical practice and drug company. His public service included serving on the Board of Health of Mecklenburg County, and being twice elected to the Board of Aldermen in 1888 and 1890. In 1898, President McKinley appointed him consul to Sierra Leone, a post he held until 1907. In 1921, Dr. Williams built an elegant 3-story house in the same block as the MIC building which was designed by Charlotte architect Louis Asbury.⁸ J. T. Williams Junior High School is named in honor of Dr. Williams.

The Mecklenburg Investment Company purchased the lot for the building in July, 1921, from Nancy Kerr Brown Young and her husband, Dolph M. Young.⁹ Mrs. Young had inherited the property from her father, Peter Marshall Brown (1859-1913), a prominent nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Charlotte businessman and a major owner of downtown real estate in the city. He was the son of Col. John L. Brown of Charlotte, and was president of the Traders Land Company.

On April 29, 1922, the contractor, W. W. Smith, obtained a building permit from the city for the construction of the building.¹² William W. Smith (1873-1924) was an experienced designer and builder who specialized in brick structures. He was a member of the nearby Grace A.M.E. Zion church located in the same block, which he had also built in 1900-1902. Thad Tate, Dr. J. T. Williams and a number of MIC shareholders were also members of the Grace Church. Since the building permit indicated that there was no architect, W. W. Smith probably designed the structure himself, which was estimated to cost $28,000.00. The three-story building was planned to accommodate six stores on the first floor, sixteen offices on the second, and four offices and an assembly room on the third.

In late 1922, the MIC building was completed, and a number of black doctors, dentists (including Dr. A. J. Williams, the first MIC secretary), lawyers, other professionals and businesses, who were scattered in various parts of the city, often in unsuitable quarters, moved into the building. For some forty years the building served as a center for social, business, and professional activities for Charlotte’s black citizens. Yancey’s Drug Store operated in a corner shop, followed by a popular restaurant, the Savoy Inn, and a number of Charlotte’s black Masonic lodges began in the meeting room on the shirt floor. Social clubs there often heard the music of Jimmy Gunn’s dance band (J. H. Gunn was also a school principal after whom J. H. Gunn school is named). According to MIC’s president, who is a grandson of Thad Tate, the building was a financial success to the extent that the mortgage was retired in less than ten years, and thus was not a problem when the Great Depression struck.

In the 1960s, the character of downtown Charlotte changed, which affected the prosperity of the building. As Brooklyn and other downtown neighborhoods decayed, many blacks moved to West Charlotte. During that time streetcar service from the newer areas to downtown was discontinued, urban renewal destroyed Second Ward as a residential neighborhood, and integration facilitated many blacks moving to newer offices throughout the city, and thus tenancy in the MIC Building dropped considerably.¹⁷ As a part of an increasingly revitalized downtown, however, a renovated MIC Building could still play a vital role in the business life of Charlotte, and at the same time a unique part of the city’s history could thereby be preserved as a cultural link with its past, which helps identify the city’s distinct character.

Notes

¹ Charlotte Observer, May 2, 1922, p. 4.

² Interview with Aurelia Tate Henderson, Charlotte, NC, 15 May 1981.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Secretary of State’s Office, Raleigh, NC.

⁵ Interview with Mr. Ray Booton, President, MIC, 26 May 1981.

⁶ Charlotte Observer, March 30, 1951, p. 22A and March 31, 1951, p. 12A; interview with Mrs. Henderson cited above.

⁷ Charlotte Observer, June 9, 1924, p. 10.

⁸ Building Permit, City of Charlotte, 14 June 1921.

⁹ Deed Book 454, p. 21, 2 July 1921. Part of the compensation was shares in the MIC; Interview with Dolph Young, Charlotte, N.C. 15 September 1981.

¹⁰ Beer’s Map of Charlotte, 1887, Will Book Q. p. 323, probated 7 May 1913; Deed Book 345, p. 8, 8 Feb. 1915; Interview with Mr. Young, cited above.

¹¹ Mecklenburg County Certificate of Death, Book 2, p. 934.

¹² Building Permit, City of Charlotte, 29 April 1922.

¹³ William H. Huffman, “A Brief History of the Grace A.M.E. Zion Church”, April, 1980.

¹⁴ See note 12.

¹⁵ Charlotte News, July 25, 1980: “On Our Street” by John Vaughan.

¹⁶ Interview with Ray Booton, cited in note 5.

¹⁷ See note 15.

Jack O. Boyte

In Charlotte’s teeming Second Ward in the years following the first World War, a group of leading black citizens banded together to build the Mecklenburg Investment Company Building. On a South Brevard Street location close by a neighborhood branch of the Carnegie Free Library and the early home of the AME Zion Publishing House, the group sponsored a structure unique in Charlotte’s history. Facing uptown at the corner of East Third Street, the building escaped demolition during Charlotte’s relentless urban renewal of the 60s and 70s. There it remains — an extraordinary example of early architecture built by and for the city’s black community.

The three story rectangular brick structure has shops along the Brevard and Third Street sidewalks. Walks which even today are still edged with granite curb stones put down when the first paved streets were installed downtown. The sturdy building is 42 feet wide and 98 feet deep. The three bay front facade along Brevard is a carefully composed pattern of ornamental buff brick in varying shades and textures. Red brick soldiers and headers offer stark contrast in patterned inserts here and there. Here a center door with an arched transom opens to a tile floored foyer from which a wide stair leads to upper floors. On Third Street there is an elongated facade with eight equally spaced wood sash windows on the upper floors. The brick and stone veneer on this wall is a less elaborate combination of ornamentation.

The building’s architecture cannot be categorized in the usual sense. Its fenestration follows no rigid academic guide, though the composition was obviously influenced by the widely popular commercial style of the 20s. So the intriguing blend of cliches, borrowed from other designs, creates a structure of rare charm and significance. The nearby AME Zion Publishing Company building, demolished in recent times to make way for a clean modern structure, was remarkably like the M. I. C. building. The similarities occur primarily in the unique and imaginative patterns worked into the main facade of stone and brick veneer, as well as the comfortable walk-up three story plan. There is no record of a professional designer or architect having been employed on the structures, but it is known that both were built by William W. Smith, a successful and busy black brick mason who lived nearby on South Caldwell Street. It is most likely that Smith designed and built both structures — certainly an appealing, while conjectural, notion. As noted above, the front and side street facades where special elaborations occur have rudimentary suggestion of elements which are consistent with more formal classical compositions of the time. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end in the Sullivan tradition.

Ground floor veneer has horizontal recessed bands which reflect traditional rustication. At the second and third levels are rows of windows separated by horizontal projecting bands of brick headers and cast stone. Spandrel panels of patterned flashed headers with lighter colored plinths give emphasis to the window stacks. On the front each corner is punctuated vertically with repeated triple course quoin stacks. Completing the tripartite theme of the fenestration is an elaborate cornice. Laid just above the third floor cast stone window lintels is a series of closely spaced corbeled brick brackets. Over this is a broad brick band divided to match the window bay spaces embellished with diamond patterned brick headers. Finally, the crowning cornice consists of another band of brick brackets supporting three stretcher courses — each slightly corbeled as they rise to form a high parapet.

In the usual mode of the first quarter of this century, the building has load bearing exterior brick walls and interior floor and ceiling systems of wood. Joist spans were determined generally by the location of corridor walls, yet at times are strangely inconsistent. There appears to be no predetermined floor framing pattern. This is a further suggestion of a provincial origin for the design.

Interior finishes are unadorned. Woodwork is simple with few molded shapes. Walls are all plaster on wood lath. Floors are narrow tongue and groove pine strips. At the head of the entrance stair a center corridor runs the length of the second floor. Along each side are evenly spaced two paneled doors which open to side offices. The floor above is an open meeting hall still used for lodge meetings. It remains unaltered since first erected. The rear and left sides, which were expected to be concealed from view, are colorful facades of common red brick laid in American bond of one headed course for each four or five stretcher courses. Window openings have skillfully laid arched brick lintels of double headers. Sills are projecting stretcher courses supported by a single header course.

There is little questions that this is an important building in Charlotte’s preserved architectural inventory. It is the sole remaining commercial structure near the Square, whose origins abide in black history. Furthermore, the likelihood that its designer and builder was a skilled black craftsman, W.W. Smith, lends it added significance. The center of town is enriched by its presence.