Institution

Mill house living was the best way to go in the early 1900s. Workers at the mills worked 6 days a week and returned a large portion of their pay back to the mill owners for them to live in their mill house. It made sense to have as many people as possible working at the mill from your house, just to make sure you had a little extra money at the end of the week.Southside millhouses were built very quickly, sometimes up to 10 a day. They consisted of 4 rooms-a kitchen, living room, and 2 bedrooms. No closets, no indoor bathrooms. The houses all had a centralized front porch and a very small front yard-front yards were a luxury they had to do without. The backyards were much larger, and the houses were set up back to back on the streets. The backyards were used as farmland, and it was not uncommon to see neighbors trading products. Some would grow beans, tomatoes, and other vegetables, others kept livestock such as chickens, and goats. These would have been some of the first farmers' markets the neighborhood has seen.

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As the North Highland Park Mill #3 along North Davidson Street was constructed in 1903, the mill also planned a mill community with housing and shops for the mill workers. This mill neighborhood is generally bounded by North Davidson, McDowell, Charles Avenue, and 36th Street. While many of these homes have "had work" as they say, the signature design of architect Stuart Cramer of a 1-story home with an open front porch and entry door centered on the home can still be seen.


North Highland's Mill House on Yadkin Ave

Charlotte CityWalks - NoDa

Built around 1905, this former mill house has been the home of a variety of tenants over the years, including plumbers, carpenters, musicians, and artists. In 2015, two NoDa locals purchased the property with plans to create a space where everyone would feel welcome. They also wanted the building to be a work of art, and so they commissioned Matt Hooker and Matt Moore to wrap the store’s exterior with a mural. Using acrylic paint and a grayscale palette, Hooker and Moore transformed the bungalow into a unique piece of art that tells the story of historic North Charlotte. Around the exterior, we see a graphic representation of NoDa’s eclectic history as it moved from being farmland to a booming textile mill town, to Charlotte’s Arts &amp; Entertainment District.The front of the house along Yadkin Avenue depicts the start of our history with sprawling farmland and rolling hills as part of the Rosedale Plantation. As you walk to the right, you’ll notice a portrait of General William Lee Davidson, who was an officer of the North Carolina militia and the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.Just around the corner, the mural depicts the areas’ history as part of the textile industry, with a representation of the Highland Mill #3 tower—which opened in 1903 and was the first of three textile mills to be built in this part of Charlotte. Moving further to the right you will see one of NoDa’s infamous chicken thieves-- a nod to the sometimes seedy reputation the neighborhood has had. The name of the place is also a cheeky reference to the history of labor in the area. North Charlotte—like other mill towns—was a planned community built to house the workers of the new factories. The owners of these factories didn’t just own the places people worked, but also their homes where they lived, the schools where children learned, the churches where they worshipped, and the many of the stores where people spent their money, which ensured that much of the money the mill paid to its employees circulated right back into the hands of their employers through the purchases they made at the company-owned stores.  Around the next corner, you’ll find sections pointing to our seedier past of brothels, gambling, and the Triple X movies that were shown at The Astor Theater across the street, as well as a giant portrait of Paul Sires, who along with Ave Ruth Lyons, was one of the people responsible for opening galleries in the area and turning this into an arts district in the 1990s.

Welcome to the NoDa City Walks tour! This tour is narrated by NoDa residents and walk leaders. To listen, click "show audio" under the Introduction and Background & Context Sections. 


The tour starts with the NoDa Company Store, a former mill house that tells the story of the neighborhood on its exterior walls. It's a quick walk from anywhere in NoDa, including the 36th Street Blue Line transit station.

 
Since opening in 2016, the NoDa Company Store has quickly become a neighborhood staple. On any given day, you can find locals and visitors alike relaxing on the outdoor patio, enjoying a leisurely swing in the butterfly garden, or perusing the art hanging inside. Its exterior also sports a mural depicting the area’s history.



NoDa Company Store

Former Hornet, Kendall Gill, had a foundation here in the 90s. The Kendall Gill House was on this site and served as a halfway house for men dealing with alcohol and drug abuse. What better place to put a house for drug and alcohol abuse than right smack in the middle of a neighborhood where drugs were being sold on every corner? Later it was the Charlotte Habit for Humanity headquarters. Lat Purser took it over in the 2000s and created The Davy. The original building was remodeled and the companion building to the right was constructed. For many years, the NoDa Neighborhood Association held the annual Marathon Cheer Party at the site, complete with breakfast items and beverages donated by businesses such as Smelly Cat and dog treats from Four Dogs Pet Supply, the Garinger high school band, and lots of neighbors cheering on the runners as they rounded the corner from North Davidson onto 35th Street.

The Davy is a great example of repurposed buildings in the neighborhood with varied use over the years.  It is currently a rental apartment complex. There are two structures on the site. When facing The Davy, the structure on the left is the original, the North Charlotte Hotel, and was built, owned and maintained by the mills.  It functioned as a boarding house for mill workers or as a hotel for visitors. It remained as such until the 50s-60s when the neighborhood began an economic decline.



The Davy

Mill house living was the best way to go in the early 1900s. Workers at the mills worked 6 days a week and returned a large portion of their pay back to the mill owners for them to live in their mill house. It made sense to have as many people as possible working at the mill from your house, just to make sure you had a little extra money at the end of the week. Southside millhouses were built very quickly, sometimes up to 10 a day. They consisted of 4 rooms-a kitchen, living room, and 2 bedrooms. No closets, no indoor bathrooms. The houses all had a centralized front porch and a very small front yard-front yards were a luxury they had to do without. The backyards were much larger, and the houses were set up back to back on the streets. The backyards were used as farmland, and it was not uncommon to see neighbors trading products. Some would grow beans, tomatoes, and other vegetables, others kept livestock such as chickens, and goats. These would have been some of the first farmers' markets the neighborhood has seen.

In the 19th century, this terrain was nothing but farmland and swamps at the edges of the Rosedale Plantation, the Pfeiffer Estate, and the Wadsworth Farm. At the beginning of the 20th century, America’s industrial revolution was well underway and textile manufacturing was starting to move from its former centers in the northeast and midwest to the south. Three things contributed to this move; first the expansion of railway lines across the country, the second was the fact that many of the raw materials were being sourced in the south; and third the growth of collective bargaining power of labor unions. All of this prompted some of the “robber barons” of the industry to want to move their business to places like North Carolina where they thought they would find cheaper manufacturing costs due to a less politically active labor force. The arrival of a railway line made Charlotte a prime location for the construction of new modern factories. It is estimated that there were about 500 textile mills within a 125-mile radius of Charlotte.Three separate investors chose this area at the northern edges of Charlotte to build their textile mills. The first of these was Highland Park Mill #3, which began construction in 1903 on the new railway line (which is on what we might today think of as the back of the building.) The complex takes the shape of a big letter "L" and was laid out in such a way so that raw cotton was dropped off at one end of the building and finished cloth was delivered at the opposite end. Along the way, the cotton was ginned, carded, spun into thread, dyed, and finally woven into fabric. This mill’s specialty was producing gingham, although it also dabbled in other fabrics especially during the two world wars.When Highland Park #3 opened it was the area’s largest mill—a full 50% larger than the next one. This was also the first mill in Charlotte (and maybe the southeast) that was built to run on electricity. Stuart Cramer is also credited with coining the term “air conditioning” and this mill was one of the first in the region to feature that technology—although it wasn’t meant primarily to keep things cool, but rather to cleanse the air of cotton fibers which were a major fire hazard.The mill shut down in 1969 and remained vacant for decades until it was refurbished into condos in 2014. Several of the residents have reported strange events in the former mill, too, leading some to speculate that it is haunted.

The complex of buildings you see here-- which now is home to Heist Brewery, Benny Pennelo’s Pizza, and the Highland Mill Lofts—began its life as a textile mill known as the Highland Mill Loft apartments.

The mill was designed by Stuart Cramer, who went on to be known as one of the most important architects for mill and mill village design. Along with the mill, Cramer designed the mill village of homes that housed the workers and their families. While most of the original mill houses are now gone, if you wander through the neighborhood, you will see that a lot of the houses still sport Cramer’s signature front porch.

Highland Park Mill #3

What was a mill employee to do for entertainment in North Charlotte (what we know now as NoDa) during the first half of the 20th Century? One word – baseball. Summer evenings meant Twilight League baseball games. These were not friendly, pick-up games; this was competitive amateur baseball. Games and standings against local teams, such as the Lantz Cracker Mil, were covered in the Charlotte Observer. These Twilight League teams were sponsored by the mills and fielded by mill employees – some hired to work in the mill specifically for their baseball prowess. The 1920s through the 1950s was the heyday of mill baseball teams, and the Highland Park Mill #3 team played on a field across the railroad tracks from the site of the mill. The field was complete with grandstands and lights, which is particularly important as they played after work, at night. The highpoint of North Charlotte mill baseball came in 1941, when the Highland Park Mill #3 team went to the National Amateur Baseball World Series in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Play ball! Before this area was the Yards, Highland Mill employees played competitive baseball on a field across the railroad tracks from the mill.

The Charlotte Observer reported that there were 780 mills in the South.  Of those, almost 500 were within a 125-mile radius of Charlotte, making Charlotte the textile center for the nation and world.

When the first mills opened, there were no homes for the workers and no means to get them here.  So the mills did what a lot of the mills did at the time.  They simply built their own village. 

The various mills had their own baseball teams, who played each other in a regional league of sorts. Ballplayers were often younger, single men who lived at the Highland Inn, a boarding house over on Yadkin Avenue. 


Highland Park Mill #3 Baseball Field

Perhaps you learned to swim there as a kid or work out there today. The building houses a pool, a gymnasium and basketball court, cardio and weight rooms, group fitness rooms, daycare, meeting rooms, and more. The Johnston Y's meeting rooms are inviting with tall ceilings, large windows, molding, and even a fireplace. The Y is known for its presence in the community with a vital Active Older Adults Program with the largest adult lunch program in the county. Seniors enjoy lunch and a program of activities from card games to occasional local excursions. Summer camps programs and the Y are synonymous. The day camp program continued during the summer of 2020 despite all of the additional covid-19 precautions that had to be quickly implemented. It's clear that the Y is more than a gym &amp; swim! A little history: The Johnston YMCA, originally called the North Charlotte YMCA was established in 1948 after Richard Horace Johnston, president of Highland Park Manufacturing invited the Charlotte YMCA to form a branch in North Charlotte (as NoDa was known before its nickname was coined in the 1990s). David Johnston, Horace's son began building the Y we know today in 1949 and named it after his Dad. The Highland Park Mill is the large mill complex located next to the YMCA site. It's since been converted into rental apartments and the original, local red brick is now covered in gray paint.  The Johnston YMCA has known tough times firsthand. The Highland Park Mill had been a key benefactor and financially supported the YMCA, even providing maintenance staff. When the mill closed in 1969, the Y experienced a significant loss of members and financial support. From 1970 to 1973 the Y operated with just two employees -- the branch executive and the aquatics director -- and struggled to keep its doors open. That memory strikes close to home -- during 2020 the YMCAs across Charlotte were required to close and dramatically change operations and they experienced existing membership dropping and new memberships dwindle. Happily, the Johnston YMCA continues to be a cornerstone of the North Charlotte community we call NoDa.

Continuing up North Davidson Street from The Highland Mill is Noda's Johnston YMCA. You've probably noticed this stately, brick building with the white columns and expansive front lawn. We think of the Y as the "front porch of NoDa" welcoming all. 





The Johnston YMCA

During the heyday of the North Charlotte textiles mills, the first half of the 20th century, this business district would include dry goods stores, pharmacies, furniture repair shops, barbers, pools halls, and restaurants. The current Cabo Fish Taco building, built in 1913, was originally a pharmacy with the second floor (now NoDa Yoga) intended as a community space. The community space didn't pan out, but a doctor set up shop in the upstairs space convenient to the pharmacy downstairs. In the mid-1980s Paul Sires and Ruth Ava Lyons purchased the former Center of the Earth for studio space, which later became an art gallery and thus leading to North Charlotte's transformation to the NoDa Arts District. The Center of the Earth was joined by other art galleries including Blue Pony and 23 Studio, and in the 1990s gallery crawls took place twice a month and included fire jugglers and drum circles. Another early NoDa institution was Pat's Time for One More which stood on the site of the current Nevitt Building (3205 North Davidson).

Standing at the intersection of North Davidson and 35th streets today, you see a quaint, vibrant business district with shops and restaurants. Back in the day, it was constructed as a business district spanning the Highland Park Mill to the south and the Johnson and Mecklenburg Mills to the north.

Intersection of North Davidson & 35th Street

The first thing you will notice walking up to JackBeagles restaurant is that the outside is painted to look like a doghouse. The dog on top of it, however, is not Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoon. It is actually the restaurant’s namesake, who lived with his best friend Chris Ingram just a few blocks away. Chris is one of the owners of JackBeagles and named the restaurant in honor of his friend who still watches over it. Walk around the corner of the building to find a large mural that spans the entire side of the building. And don’t be surprised if you think some of the characters in the mural look familiar. Over 300 NoDa residents and workers are captured in this tribute to NoDa painted by Will Puckett. He named the piece “Als ich Chan”, which is Flemish, and translates to “As Best I Can.” Will and his wife Lauren took photos of locals as they were prepping the space and then used the photos as reference to fill in the mural. What started as a blank wall quickly turned into a collage of NoDa’s eclectic cast of characters. As you look at the mural you’ll see that a halo is painted above one man’s head. This angelic touch was a way to pay homage to Stu Sloan who passed away in 2010 just as the mural was being completed. Stu owned the Salvador Deli next door, which was known for great sandwiches and for the surrealist elephants flanking its doors. It was also known as an impromptu music venue. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Stu would host free live concerts where the mural is now featuring local and regional bands. Donations were accepted, but anyone was welcome to see great live music for free along with fire jugglers and other random forms of entertainment outside of Salvador Deli. The same Chris Ingram who is a partial owner of JackBeagles is also part owner of Stu’s Barrel House. He named this bar after Stu and kept the elephant murals as a tribute to the special place that Salvador Deli has in NoDa’s history. Across the street is the venerable Fire Department #7 station. Built in 1936, it is one of Charlotte’s oldest original firehouses. In the early days, it also had a couple of jail cells so that drunk mill workers could sleep off the night if they got too rowdy at one of the downtown taverns. The fire workers are still popular around NoDa, and you would often catch them watching the bands play at Salvador Deli from their balcony perch. See if you can also spot them in Will’s mural.

Continuing along North Davidson Street you come upon the original fire station serving North Charlotte: FD#7. The station stands as originally built in 1935 when the City of Charlotte established the station to service the North Charlotte neighborhood, now known as NoDa. The fire station is notable as it once served as a fire station and as a jail cell. 

Jackbeagles & NoDa's Fire Department #7 (FD#7)

Since Paul Sires and Ruth Lyons initiated the shift from mill village to arts district; music has become an important part of the cultural fabric of Noda. The Evening Muse, with the building owned by Paul Sires, and the venue operated by Joe Kuhlmann with current business partner Don Koster filled a niche for singer-songwriters and encouraged musician development, by giving artists a place to hone their craft. The Evening Muse celebrates 20 years of bringing music to NoDa, but its distinctive façade predates its days as the Muse.Observers will notice that the front door is on an angle; as though the corner has been sheared off – and it had, by trucks as they turned the corner. The City got involved and helped fund the renovation of the exterior you see now and worked to widen the intersection at the other end of the neighborhood, at North Davidson and Jordan Place to encourage truck traffic to move off 36th Street to use the more truck friendly Matheson Avenue to get to Tryon Street. As the composition of the neighborhood has changed over time, changing from manufacturing to more multifamily residential along with entertainment and services, the need to encourage trucks to avoid NoDa is lessened, but the Evening Muse still has its distinctive building shape.The evolution of NoDa continues with the addition of the CATS LYNX light rail line in 2016 with NoDa perched at the 36th Street Station, which is east of the Muse (toward Tryon Street). Businesses had located to take advantage of the proximity of transit, but of greater interest to history buffs will be the inclusion of art created by Ruth Ava Lyons and Paul Sires included in the 36th Street Station. The light rail signifies the next phase in NoDa’s history, which is not without its challenges, but the history of NoDa, in the form of art at the train station, informs its future.

We added a stop here as the location represents a foot in both new and old NoDa. From the corner of North Davidson and 36th Streets, you can look south and see the original downtown area of the mill villages -- The North Highland's village and the village that cropped up due to the Johnston and Mecklenberg Mills. To the west, you can spot the NoDa/36th Street Blue Line train station.


The Evening Muse: Gateway to NoDa's Light Rail Station at 36th Street

The Mecklenburg and Johnston Mills, 3327 North Davidson StreetNorth Charlotte or NoDa was first built as a planned community to house the workers of three textile mills that were built here in the early 20th century. Highland Park Mill # 3 (about half a mile southwest of here) started construction in 1903 and was the first; but the Mecklenburg Mill here followed it just two years later and the Johnston Mill opened a decade later. They all sat along the line of the Southern Railway which was crucial for spurring manufacturing in the southeast. The Mecklenburg Mill— which is one furthest up North Davidson Street and which is now apartments-- was built in 1905. When the mills were built, their owners also built “mill villages” to house workers. This mill village was designed by D.A. Tompkins, who was responsible for helping build over 100 mills and factories across the South.These homes were owned by the mill and assigned to families of workers using the “rough rule”, which stated that a family had to supply one worker to the mill for every room of the house as a condition of living there. This meant that multiple members of each family—including children as young as 10 years old-- worked in the mills in 10 to 12-hour shifts six days a week. Rent for a home was 75 cents to 1 dollar per day, and it was taken directly from the family’s wages. The mills also built and ran the local schools and churches, so that much of a millworker’s family’s life was dependent on the mill. Under this system, losing your job also meant losing your home, your child’s place in school, and maybe even your place in the pews on Sunday.The mill houses lacked indoor plumbing, electricity, and even closets. The mill owners defended this sparse architecture by saying that most of their workers had grown up in rural areas and thus were not used to that kind of modern conveniences. The houses did have large backyards, though, where residents could grow some vegetables and raise chickens and cows. And in fact, on the other side of 37th street, one could raise pigs, since it was technically outside of Charlotte’s city limits. While most of the mill houses are gone, if you see a house with an offset porch, chances are it was part of the original mill village.If you look across the street you will see NoDa’s famous water tower which fed the mill’s sprinkler system—an important safety feature since old textile mill machinery had the bad habit of catching on fire. If the street seems to dpi here it is because there used to be a pond here that fed the water to that tower, but it was drained in the mid-1950s after three local children drowned there in two separate tragedies. The Johnston Mill—which is the one closer to NoDa’s central business district and is currently abandoned-- opened in 1913. Unlike its predecessors, it never created a separate village for its workers but instead expanded the existing neighborhood and businesses. The Johnston mill closed in 1975, which marked the end of an era in Charlotte’s history as it was the last operating textile mill in the city.

The Johnston and Mecklenberg Mills were constructed just a few years after the Highland Park #3 mill just down the street during Charlotte's boom days with the cotton milling industry. Both are located along North Davidson Street, north of 36th Street. You'll find more detail about The Highland Mill at another stop on this tour.



Johnston & Mecklenburg Mills

Northside millhouses had some slight variances to the southside houses. The front porch was off-centered and were 4 room structures with no closets or indoor plumbing. The houses originally were built with dirt floors, and many people would share the bedrooms.   Millhouse living was the best way to go in the early 1900s. Workers at the mills worked 6 days a week and returned a large portion of their pay back to the mill owners for them to live in their mill house. It made sense to have as many people as possible working at the mill from your house, just to make sure you had a little extra money at the end of the week.

If you followed the earlier part of this tour, you saw examples of mill housing on Yadkin Avenue associated with the Highland Park #3 Mill. Houses along 37th street represent a slightly different architectural style and were constructed as worker housing for the Johnston and Mecklenburg Mill Village in North Charlotte.

A Classic Johnston/Mecklenburg Mill - Mill House

The Astor Theater opened in the 1940s as a traditional movie house, a delightful diversion for mill workers and their families. A soda shop offered treats next door. Years later, the theatre shifted to B movies, and by the time the textile mills closed in the ’60s and ’70s, the Astor “Art” Theatre shifted exclusively to porn films. A side shop now sold sex toys and a not-so-secret brothel operated upstairs.By the 1980s, the theater had darkened, and an evangelist who legally changed his name to John 3:16 leased it. He ran a church and homeless shelter in the space. The marquee once reading “Parking in Rear” now promised “Soap, Soup, and Hope.” Incidentally, John 3:16 swiftly left for Florida and was later busted for embezzlement. In 1985, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints moved in to run a Christian music venue. Two years later another church briefly took over. Finally, in the 1990s, the space began its transition into the music venue it is today. It has hosted local and international performers - from Charlotte bands giving benefit concerts for charity to national acts such as George Clinton and Parliament, the Indigo Girls, and the Black Crowes. Another Clinton - Hillary Clinton - spoke here during a presidential campaign stop in 2016. Will Puckett, a well-known muralist whose work is also featured at the Jack Beagles spot on this tour, painted the mural above the marquee in 2015. There have been several renovations inside as well to better accommodate both performers and audiences. While the venue is quite different from its origins 75 years ago, it remains a treasured gathering spot in NoDa.Turn 180 degrees and you will face the Smelly Cat Coffee House.This neighborhood coffee house originated as a gas station serving North Charlotte once cars became common in the mill village. In 1999, the small brick building became Smelly Cat. The name probably sounds familiar to fans of the 1990s sitcom Friends as a song sung by the character Phoebe. As in the TV show, locals enjoy fueling up and hanging out in this space, surrounded by art and acoustic entertainment.This concludes the NoDa City Walks tour. City Walks Charlotte would love to hear from you about your experience participating in this year's tours. To take a brief survey, click the survey link at the bottom of this page.

The Neighborhood Theater and Smelly Cat Coffeehouse are both representative of reuse. Smelly Cat has been caffeinating NoDa for more than 20 years. 

Across 36th Street is the beloved Neighborhood Theater. The theater is a music and entertainment venue featuring local, regional, and national acts as well as local events such as the annual Home Grown Tomato festival!

Charlotte CityWalks - NoDa

North Highland's Mill House on Yadkin Ave

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Additional Information