Charlotte's Belmont Neighborhood - From a Mill Village to More Than a Century Later

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And finally, you have arrived at our last stop, viewing 933 Hub. Built in 1945, Jack’s Cookie Company, was acquired by Murray Bakery, which became Keebler, which in turn was purchased by Kellogg. Factory workers produced Famous Amos, Austin Sandwich cremes, and Iced Animal cookies, and sweet smells wafted through the neighborhood. The plant closed in 2014, and the property was purchased by Doug Bradley and Peter Thompson, who transformed it into a dynamic mixed-use facility that in 2020 includes a coworking space, escape room, brewery, indoor skate park, café, and axe throwing facility.

2. City Municipal Garage and the Innovation Barn

The City’s Municipal Garage was constructed in 1928 and occupied in 1929. Noted Charlotte architect C.C. Hook, who also designed Charlotte’s 1925 City Hall, among many other important structures across the Carolinas, provided the plans. The facility was designed with motor vehicles in mind, backing up to the Seaboard Railway line so that gasoline, motor oil, and related products could be brought in by tank car. The Municipal Garage likely also held the city’s dwindling number of workhorses in its early years. The Observer noted that former City Stable, located at Hill and Poplar Streets where Panthers’ Stadium is today, closed around 1928 when the new Municipal Garage opened.

3. Piedmont Courts to Seigle Point

The City of Charlotte located its first public housing project for whites in Belmont. Piedmont Courts opened in 1940 at Seigle Avenue and East 10th Street. The site, on a hollow along Sugar Creek near the railroad, had long been a makeshift shantytown. The new project’s architecture by Martin Boyer and Harold Bursley featured elegant historic motifs, including rounded dormers, brick exteriors, and red-tile roofs. The townhouses were arranged to provide covered walkways and interior play yards, which were considered very progressive ideas at the time. Another less elaborate design was created for Blacks in a development near Statesville Avenue across town.

4. Belmont Graded School and the Salvation Army

This stop is currently the Salvation Army Chapel. The 1903 Charlotte City directory lists this property as Belmont Graded School, with well-known journalist and child labor activist Rev. AJ McKelway serving as principal. McKelway wrote a series of editorials opposing the labor of young children in mills for long workdays and in unhealthy conditions.

5. Crime and Redevelopment on Belmont Springs Main Street

In 1938 Lawrence K. Farrar, Jr. and his wife Marguerite purchased the land at 1035 Harrill Street for $1,250; and they later built and opened a convenience store named L.K. Grocery. The store stayed in the family and provided goods to the community through decades of changes in the neighborhood.

6. Business Use to Single Family Home & Belmont Springs

This brick structure appears to have been built between 1926 and 1930 and served as one of the neighborhood grocery stores for a short time. Between extended periods of vacancy until 2013, it also served as WPA Sewing Project no. 1544, Tire and Supply Co, Hinson Manufacturing & Distribution Company, Knight Brothers Furniture Company, Fire and Glass Fabrications and, finally, as Lo's Place Lounge in the early ‘80s. In 2013, it was renovated and converted to a residential unit.

7. Centra Square

You will view the townhouses and the brick building that make up the block of Allen Street between 17th and 16th Street. A generation ago, Belmont was considered one of Charlotte’s most dangerous neighborhoods. Now, it’s undergoing another transformation. Longtime residents celebrate the improved safety but grapple with the reality of soaring rents and taxes that may push them out. Post mill-village, Belmont had a very high percentage of rental properties, with most units being very affordable, but now many landlords are starting to either sell or fix up their properties to charge much higher prices.

8. Allen Street Baptist Church and St. Paul Baptist Church

At the corner of East 17th and Allen streets stands a church with a rich history in the community. The former Allen Street Baptist Church started as a Sunday School in 1897 in the Louise Mill School House. It came under the sponsorship of the 12th Street Baptist Church and grew rapidly. Originally named The Belmont Baptist Church, it was organized with 44 members, who hired a minister and deacons with help from the mill.

9. Little Sugar Creek Greenway Garden & Eastend Development

The gardeners in this community garden believe everyone should have access to fresh food, regardless of income. The garden began in 2009 with a mission to bring residents of local neighborhoods together to experience fun and fellowship while learning eco-friendly gardening techniques. Classes are held regularly onsite, including sessions on composting, soil management, toxicity reduction and seed saving, fresh food harvesting, preparation and preservation. The garden donates over 10% of its produce to Friendship Trays, the area’s meals-on-wheels program.

10. Habitat for Humanity’s First “Women Build”

In the fall of 1983, Habitat for Humanity built its first Charlotte home in Optimist Park, the neighborhood west of Belmont across from Little Sugar Creek. Habitat is a nonprofit that helps families build and improve places to call home. Habitat supporter President Jimmy Carter was in Optimist Park the summer of 1987 to help build 14 houses in 5 days. In August 1988, the efforts moved to Belmont.

11. Grocery and Convenience Stores

The brick building at 1201 Kennon Street was built in 1929 and used as either a convenience or grocery store until 2019. From 1929 to 1953, the building was occupied by H. B. Polk Grocery. It was rebranded as Polk Food Store and closed in 1974. Through 2019, approximately five other stores operated in the building and were also vacant for some periods. As of early 2020, the property was being rezoned to allow the space to operate as a restaurant.

12. Sunnyside Development

As you walk along Kennon Street toward the next stop, you will see Soulshine Organics on the right, just past 1304 Kennon Street. Look for the open space between homes with a Little Free Library and mosaic design. Soulshine Organics is an urban farm that was started in 2012 by four residents of Belmont who decided they would use all-organic methods to grow their own fruits and vegetables, raise chickens for eggs and bees for honey. Continue walking about 300 feet and cross Kennon Street just past the intersection with Parson Street to 1405 Kennon Street.

13. Tech High School

The next stop is at the large institutional structure. As cotton mills came into the Belmont and North Charlotte communities in the early 1920s, Charlotte city leaders and businessmen began working together to improve the education of the children of the mill workers and others in the surrounding community. City leaders worked with the owners of The Louise Mill to create a vocational school to provide children of the Belmont and North Charlotte communities with industrial education.

14. Four Developments Create Current Day Belmont

This corner marks the intersection of the mill village, the southeast area of the neighborhood, and suburban land developments called Belmont Springs to the southwest, Sunnyside to the northeast, and Eastend to the northwest. This is the nexus of the different developments that gave rise to what we now consider Charlotte’s Belmont neighborhood.

15. Red Front Department Store

The next stop is at the two-story brick building at the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Pegram Street. This is the oldest surviving retail building in the neighborhood, the Red Front Department Store. In the early 1900s, there were small groceries and small general stores on almost every corner in all of Charlotte’s working-class neighborhoods.

16. The Mill Village

At this stop, you will see houses behind the mill along Louise Ave. This street was part of the mill village. The Louise Cotton Mill built 72 houses for its workers on William (which is now Pamlico), Louise, and Pegram streets, on the hill above the mill. These homes have special significance because they illustrate the mill’s role and the labor of the workers as Charlotte became a major textile manufacturing center in the Carolina Piedmont region between 1880 and 1930.

17. Louise Cotton Mill

We begin this tour at the Louise Cotton Mill at the gated vehicle entrance near the railroad tracks and across from 1003 Louise Avenue. In 1896, investors planning the Louise Yarn Mill purchased 30 acres of farmland for $3,000 from Mrs. Kate Moore. When the mill opened in 1897, it was the largest cotton mill in Charlotte and was conveniently located next to the Carolina Central Railroad.

18. Charlotte's Belmont Neighborhood - More than a Century from a Mill Village Start

Hello, thank you for your interest in the Belmont Community’s History Walk! Join us for a 2 and a half-mile tour in one of Charlotte's oldest neighborhoods – the Belmont Community. On this tour, you will learn about three different eras of Belmont. First the mill village, then the post-Brooklyn neighborhood and disinvestment, and finally the reinvestment that started in the early 2000s.

This Tour is a Walking Tour.

Charlotte's Belmont Neighborhood - From a Mill Village to More Than a Century Later

Created by UNCC Urban Institute on April 3rd 2021, 8:22:26 pm.

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Hello, thank you for your interest in the Belmont Community’s History Walk! Join us for a 2 and a half mile tour in one of Charlotte's oldest neighborhoods – the Belmont Community. On this tour, you will learn about three different eras of Belmont. First the mill village, then the post-Brooklyn neighborhood and disinvestment, and finally the reinvestment that started in the early 2000s.

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Charlotte's Belmont Neighborhood - From a Mill Village to More Than a Century Later

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