Charlotte tourist information

Charlotte was founded in the mid-18th century at the intersection of two Native American trading paths. One of which ran north-south Great Wagon Road, and is followed closely today by U.S. Route 21, and a second that ran east-west along what is now modern-day Trade Street. In the early part of the 18th century, the Great Wagon Road led settlers of Scots-Irish (who were mostly Presbyterian and founded many churches) and German descent from Pennsylvania into the Carolina foothills.

Build a Home ... A City is Born
In 1755, early settler Thomas Polk (uncle of United States President James K. Polk) built a home at the crossroads of a Native American trading path and the Great Wagon Road. This became the village of "Charlotte Town," incorporated in 1768. The crossroads, perched atop a long rise in the piedmont landscape, is at the heart of modern Uptown Charlotte. The trading path became Trade Street, and the Great Wagon Road became Tryon Street, in honor of William Tryon, a royal governor of colonial North Carolina. The intersection of Trade and Tryon is known as "The Square" or simply "Trade & Tryon."

Meet Charlotte ... My German Wife
Both the city and its county are named for Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the German-born wife of British King George III. The loyalty to King George and his consort was short-lived, however. On May 20, 1775, townsmen allegedly signed a proclamation that later became known as the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. A copy was sent, though never officially presented, to the Continental Congress a year later.

Plagiarism?
Though Thomas Jefferson would deny having borrowed content from the Mecklenburg Declaration, his U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776) features language similar to the Charlotte document. However, today there is no generally accepted historic proof of the so-called Meck-Dec, and many doubt it ever existed, yet the supposed date of the Declaration appears on North Carolina' state flag). Eleven days later the same twenty-seven townsmen met to create and endorse the Mecklenburg Resolves, a set of laws to govern the newly independent town.

Hornet's Nest
Charlotte played a critical role during the Revolutionary War. It was a site of encampment for both the American and British main armies, and during a series of skirmishes between British troops and Charlotteans the village earned the lasting nickname "Hornet's Nest" from a frustrated Lord General Charles Cornwallis. Charlotte was an ideological hotbed of revolutionary sentiment during the Revolutionary War and for some time afterwards, a legacy that endures today in the nomenclature of such landmarks as Independence Boulevard, Independence High School, Independence Center, Freedom Park, Freedom Drive, and the former NBA team Charlotte Hornets.

Gold Rush and Stealing
In 1799, twelve-year-old Conrad Reed went fishing one Spring morning and brought home a "rock" weighing about 17 pounds, which the family used as a bulky doorstop for three years before it was recognized by a jeweller as near solid gold and bought for a paltry $3.50. This discovery was the first verified gold-find in the fledgling United States; in time, as word of the find trickled out, Reed's discovery became the genesis of the young nation's first gold rush. Many veins of gold were subsequently found in the area by miners and fortune-seekers throughout the 1800s and even in to the early 1900s, thus the founding of the Charlotte Mint for the sole purpose of minting local gold in to US currency in the late-1830s.

The state of North Carolina "led the nation in gold production until the California Gold Rush of 1848". Interestingly, some locally based groups in the city and surrounding areas still pan for gold occasionally in local (mostly rural) streams and creeks. The Reed Gold Mine was the nation's first gold mine, and it operated until 1912. Uptown Charlotte was literally and figuratively built on gold mines.

Banks, Finance and the Stealing of a Mint!
Charlotte's history as a financial, banking, and monetary center is quite extensive. In 1837 the U.S. Congress established a branch United States Mint here because of the gold deposits found in the area. The Charlotte Mint was active until 1861, when Confederate forces seized the mint facility at the outbreak of the Civil War. The mint was not reopened at the end of the war, but the building survives today, albeit in a different location, and now houses the Mint Museum of Art.

Bank of America and Wachovia
The city's modern-day banking industry achieved prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, largely under the leadership of financier Hugh McColl. McColl transformed North Carolina National Bank (NCNB) into a formidable national player that, through a series of aggressive acquisitions, would eventually become Bank of America. Another hometown bank, First Union, experienced similar growth, and is now known as Wachovia. Today, Charlotte is the second largest banking center in the United States after New York City.

Don't Forget the Past
Charlotte's penchant for looking ahead - a drive for economic development that kicked into particularly high gear during the mid-to-late 20th century - has created something of a historical apathy in the city. Unfortunately, many traces of Antebellum Charlotte are long gone, and historically-driven preservationists often struggle to maintain old-city landmarks in the face of modern-minded boosters, a key reason Charlotte is often regarded as a "new" American city despite the fact that it is actually one of the oldest of the nation's larger cities.

Famous People
Famous natives of Charlotte include evangelist Billy Graham, pop music stars K-Ci and JoJo of Jodeci, R&B singer Anthony Hamilton, R&B singer Sunshine Anderson, pro wrestling legend Ric Flair, actor Randolph Scott, U.S. president James K. Polk (Pineville), independent filmmaker Ross McElwee, humorist Rich Hall, film critic Molly Haskell, musican Prairie Prince, artist Romare Bearden, actress Berlinda Tolbert (of The Jeffersons) and Emmy-nominated actress Sharon Lawrence ("NYPD Blue"). Novelist Carson McCullers wrote her best-known work, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, while a resident of the city.