The South End: A History of Design, Innovation and Creativity
Charlotte has always been a city of palpable opportunity with the potential for lucrative reward, and South End has been at the center of innovation and entrepreneurialism from the beginning. It is home to the nation’s first gold rush, which partially inspired the construction the city’s first railroad, leading trains through South End in 1852. It’s the area’s first industrial park opening its doors in 1892. And it’s everything in between. South End’s history is spotted with firsts—and not just for the neighborhood but for the region and city—but South End was really made while no one was looking. Men rushed to the Queen City throughout the early nineteenth century looking for gold and although few were lucky, they brought an entrepreneurial spirit of hope and resilience that can still be found on the streets today.
While the groundwork for innovation was being laid by Charlotte’s mining community, rail lines were being laid in preparation for the region’s first railroad, which would connect Charlotte to South Carolina. And on October 21, 1852, the first railroad train arrived in the Queen City. It would be a day that changed everything.
The Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad was the first rail line into this section of the Piedmont, and the inaugural train, arriving from Columbia, was greeted by a brass band and free barbecue. The line was made possible by Charlotte’s business community and entrepreneurs arranging innovative funding, which was a region-wide effort, with farmers and townsfolk all along the route buying stock, and local governments kicking in cash as well. The railroad’s presence guaranteed Charlotte would soon forge ahead of similar surrounding towns.
Without the railroad, none of the other events in this history would have happened, nor would Charlotte be the city it is today. Says Dan Morrill in Historic Charlotte, An Illustrated History of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, “By doing so, they (Charlotte leaders) elevated resolute and imaginative leadership to the pinnacle of importance it has occupied in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County ever since.” (p. 29)
And it has been imaginative leadership, as well as creativity and innovation, that has made the South End a center for design and for new ways of thinking and building.