West Avenue

Similar to Main St., the shops on West Avenue feature Williamsburg style architecture, with windows embedded into the highly angled roofs. Some of the single-story shops, however, feature architecture that more closely resembles the pre-1940s style that Kannapolis utilized, with large, industrial style windows and a generally flat exterior devoid of the angled ceilings and embedded windows, or decorative iron railings in front of windows.

West Avenue today still maintains the same general layout as it did years ago, with two one-way streets separated by a grassy median and ample parking on both sides of the street. Today, many of the old shops are occupied by various businesses, such as a bicycle shop, a bakery, barber shops and hair salons, and a microbrewery. The various small, non-chain businesses are a reminder of Kannapolis’ mill village past, as the town sprang up around the mill. Commercial centers in mill villages such as Kannapolis were vital to encourage employees to move into mill houses and stay as employees of the mill. If an employee had to travel to Concord for their shopping, they very well could have simply lived in Concord and worked at a mill there. Again, Thompkins’ philosophy of offering the comforts of the city with the familiarity of the country is at play.[1]

West Avenue also is where the Swanee Theater is located, currently being renovated for adaptive reuse after city officials ensured its safety during the West Avenue revitalization. The Swanee, much smaller than the Gem Theater, was the second largest theater in Kannapolis at the time of its construction. At the end of West Avenue, is the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1925 with its current appearance being completed in the 1970s.[2] Like First Baptist, just a couple blocks away, First Presbyterian has long been a member of the Kannapolis community, being founded in 1911.

West Ave. is the newer of the mill village shopping streets, having been built due to the Great Depression. Government programs had allowed Cannon Mills to continue expanding during the economic disaster, and that required a larger workforce which required more shops to account for the booming populations.[3] The growing town also needed more banks to serve the growing workforce. West Avenue is home to the old Cabarrus Bank and Trust Company building, located at the corner of West B St. and West Avenue. This building is a well-preserved look at the original building style of West Avenue, with a large archway over the main entrance on West Ave., and a slightly sloped roof with decorative iron fencing in front of second floor windows. The construction in the Williamsburg style is what lead to the shops on Main St. being renovated to the style as well, to create a sense of connectedness and uniformity.

[1] Christopher B. Daly, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Mary Murphy Lu Ann Jones, and James Korstad, Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 130.

[2] Kannapolis: A Pictorial History, (Charlotte: Jostens, 2008), 22.

[3] Peter R. Kaplan, The Historic Architecture of Cabarrus County North Carolina, (Charlotte: Jostens, 2004), 181.