Finding history along uptown's Tryon Street

Walking tour of uptown Charlotte

Tryon Street is Charlotte's main drag, public face and front porch. Bankers and office workers fill the sidewalks during the day; concertgoers and bar crawlers populate them in the evenings. Everything seems sparkling and new. But if you know where to look, Tryon Street tells stories of Charlotte's two-and-a-half centuries of history.

Even before there was a city here, Tryon Street existed. An American Indian route ran along this hilltop, part of the Great Trading Path to Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. A lesser trail to Charleston, now Trade Street, crossed it. When European settlers arrived, they built farms and stores at that crossroads and schemed to get it chosen as the courthouse spot for the surrounding county.

How to catch the attention of government decision makers? Name the settlement "Charlotte," after the wife of King George III, who ruled the colonies. And name the main street after the Colonial governor, William Tryon.

In 1768, Charlotte was officially incorporated as the seat of Mecklenburg County.

During the Revolution, British Gen. Lord Cornwallis got shot up here in the Battle of Charlotte that raged up and down Tryon Street. He skedaddled off, grousing that Charlotte was a "hornet's nest" of rebellion. A few years later, President George Washington spent the night at a Tryon Street inn, and in his diary, he called tiny Charlotte a "trifling place."

Tryon Street came into its own in the New South era after the Civil War. Railroads transformed the once-isolated Carolina backcountry into America's top textile manufacturing region by the 1920s. Charlotte, trading hub of that district, emerged as the biggest city in North and South Carolina - a distinction it still holds.

Postcards trumpeted South Tryon as "the Wall Street of Charlotte." Today's SunTrust tower, erected for an earlier bank in 1926, was the tallest in the Carolinas. The 1920s Johnston Building, another historic landmark, held mill owners and textile suppliers. Elegant 1914 Latta Arcade, with its glass-roofed interior street, had many of the city's cotton buyers.

From far and wide, everyone converged on Tryon Street, prime shopping center of the region. Belk's flagship department store is now gone, but the handsome edifices that once held Ivey's (later merged into Dillard's) and chic Montaldo's still grace the avenue.

Then during the 1950s through the 1970s, America fell in love with suburbia. In Charlotte, the Belk and Ivey families opened SouthPark mall in 1970. Tryon Street languished.

Like many cities, Charlotte scrambled for "downtown renewal."

Businessman Jack Woods squawked over the "downtown" name. Due to Tryon Street's ridgeline route, old-timers had always talked of going "uptown." On Sept. 23, 1974, a City Council resolution made Uptown the official moniker of the center city.

In the 1980s, Charlotte bankers made breakthroughs that re-invented U.S. finance, opening the era of interstate banking. During the 1990s, Hugh McColl at Bank of America and rival Ed Crutchfield at what became Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo) redefined the Tryon Street skyline with new towers.

Because a vibrant uptown could help lure world-class workers to their banks, McColl and Crutchfield helped marshal funds for new cultural beacons.

Spirit Square arts center (1975), Discovery Place science museum (1981) and the Belk Theater (1991) began to turn Tryon Street into an arts district. The Levine Cultural Campus (2010) added the Gantt Center for African American Arts & Culture, the Mint Museum of Art, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art and the Knight Theater.

Today, Tryon Street is a must-see for Charlotte newcomers. Don't miss the four soaring statues that mark the original American Indian crossroads. Symbolizing Transportation, Industry, Commerce and Future, they suggest that present-day Charlotte springs from deep roots in history.

Tom is staff historian at Levine Museum of the New South: www.museumofthenewsouth.org.