Advanced Search
Take a look at how inexpensive it was to rent a house a hundred years ago. This is a copy of an advertisement from the 1903 Charlotte Observer. A family could rent a seven-room house in uptown Charlotte for $25.00 a month in the early 1900s.
The first passenger train arrived in Charlotte in 1852. The second passenger depot was the Southern Railroad Depot that was designed by Frank Milburn in the Spanish Mission style.
This is an interior shot of Fitzsimmons Drugstore. There are twenty pharmacists who own their own stores throughout Charlotte. Fitzsimmons was at 126 South Tryon Street.
Most towns in America support at least one local band. The Charlotte Drum & Bugle Corp, was a popular town booster. Our city’s motto “Watch Charlotte Grow” appears on the bass drums.
Dorothy Counts (b. 1942) was the daughter of a Johnson C. Smith University professor.
Dorothy Simpson Masterson (July 28, 1897 - March 22, 1991) has been called Charlotte's First Lady of the Theatre. She was an experienced and professionally trained actress. Mrs.
Ephraim Brevard (17??-1781) was one of the original signers of the Meckenburg Declaration of Independence. Dr. Brevard was one of this area's first physicians. He was born in Maryland and moved at a young age with his family to North Carolina.
Grand homes of Charlotte’s most prominent citizens line the streets in uptown Charlotte during the 1900s.
The Belk family moved from Lancaster, S.C., to Monroe, N.C. in 1873. Without money to attend college, William Henry Belk (1862-1952) went to work at age 14 in a local store for $5 per month. He learned on the job and saved what he could of his earnings.
Henry Downs (May 5, 1728 - October 8, 1798) was one of the original signers of the Meckenburg Declaration of Independence. Virginian Henry Downs was trained as a surveyor. He and his wife left Virginia and moved to the Providence township in Mecklenburg.
Matthew McClure (circa 1725 - 2/28/1805) was one of the original signers of the Meckenburg Declaration of Independence.He moved from Virginia to north Mecklenburg County, where he bought land in 1765.
Although he never visited Charlotte, this English landowner was important to the founding and settling of the Queen City. George Selwyn (1719-1791) attended prestigious Eton College and Oxford. Selwyn entered Parliament, Britain's lawmaking body, in 1747.
Henry Severs (August 13, 1915 - January 30, 1992) was one of the original members of the Mecklenburg County Alcohol Beverage Control Board. The board was created in 1946.
Death Details/Burial/Memorial Services: He grew up in Charlotte and graduated from Central High School. Air Medal for meritorius achievement in sorties over Africa. Missing in action in the Mediterranean theater. Memorial marker in North Africa.
Death Details/Burial/Memorial Services: He became a ward of the Thompson Orphanage in Charlotte when he was 10 years old. With a scholarship and hard work, he graduated from the U. of NC, where he was interested in studying medicine. He dropped his studies to join the Marines.
Death Details/Burial/Memorial Services: He was killed in action. His wife had heard from friends that he had died before she received official notification from the War Dept.
This cemetery was near an early Mecklenburg County poor house. Some researchers believe the dead were victims of the Charlotte small pox epidemic in 1896. ON 4/16/1954, 28 African-Americans remains were moved by the Board of School Commissioners from this cemetery to Sec.
