Charlotte (pop. 874,579; met. area pop. 2,660,329) is the largest city in North Carolina. It ranks as a major financial center. It is also a transportation and wholesaling center in the Southeast. Uptown Charlotte lies about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of the North Carolina-South Carolina border.
Beginning about 1748, Scotch-Irish and German farmers settled in what is now the Charlotte area. The settlers named Charlotte for Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of Britain’s King George III.
Description.
Charlotte is the seat of Mecklenburg County. The city is the home of Johnson C. Smith University, Queens University of Charlotte, and a branch of the University of North Carolina.
The Mint Museum of Art and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra have existed in the city since the 1930’s. Other cultural attractions include the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art; the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center; the Mint Museum of Craft + Design; and Discovery Place, a pair of science museums. The city is the home of the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League and the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association.
Economy.
Charlotte is one of the largest banking centers in the nation. Headquarters for Bank of America are in the city (see Bank of America). Branches of many leading banks and hundreds of foreign-owned businesses are also located there.
The city provides insurance, medical, technological, and wholesaling services for the Piedmont Region, of which it is a part. The Piedmont Region lies between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Coastal Plain (see Piedmont Region). Charlotte is also a trucking center and a manufacturing center. The city’s products include electronic equipment, fabricated metals, machinery, processed foods, and textiles. Railroads and Charlotte Douglas International Airport serve the city.
Government and history.
Charlotte has a council-manager government. The voters elect a mayor and the 11 members of the City Council. A number of city agencies, including law enforcement and public education, have merged with county agencies for efficiency.
Catawba Indians lived in what is now the Charlotte area when Scotch-Irish and German farmers began settling there in the 1740’s. The fertile soil and the friendliness of the Indians attracted the settlers. The city was incorporated in 1768. On May 31, 1775, Charlotte passed the Mecklenburg Resolves, which declared the county independent of Britain. These resolutions were among the earliest such declarations by the American colonists. Charlotte became a center of gold mining after the discovery of gold in nearby Cabarrus County in 1799. Over 50 mines were being worked in the Piedmont in the early 1800’s. A branch of the United States Mint operated in the city from 1837 to 1913
Industrialization spread in the South after the American Civil War (1861-1865), and Charlotte became the center of the Piedmont’s booming textile industry. The railroads expanded, and Charlotte’s trucking industry later developed to distribute the products of the textile mills.
In 1970, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system began one of the nation’s first large-scale programs to integrate schools by busing students. A federal court ordered the countywide system to improve the racial balance in the schools by busing students to schools outside their neighborhood. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the program in 1971. The Charlotte busing program became a national model.
Harvey Gantt became the city’s first African American mayor in 1983. He served until 1987. Sue Myrick, the city’s first woman mayor, held office from 1987 to 1991.
In 1992, a system of magnet schools was established to attract students from throughout the area. In 1999, Charlotte discontinued its busing program. A federal judge ruled that busing was no longer necessary because all traces of intentional discrimination had disappeared. In the late 1900’s and early 2000’s, Charlotte continued to expand as a major center of commerce and finance.
The NASCAR Hall of Fame opened in Charlotte in 2010. The hall has exhibits honoring the history of NASCAR, the organization that governs the nation’s most popular form of stock car automobile racing.
See also Carolina Panthers; North Carolina; North Carolina, University of.
