A glimpse of Charlotte past

My item about Jim Cochran tying himself to the tree on Wendover Road brought another interesting glimpse of Charlotte 30 years ago. I got this e-mail from John Elliot, who grew up on Churchill Road (off Wendover Road north of Randolph Road). I share it because even recent history in Charlotte is at risk of being forgotten as development changes the landscape.

He wrote:

In about 1975, a small contingent of Mecklenburg folk met w/me (Gov. Jim Holshouser's deputy. ombudsman) in the Capitol concerning the trees. I felt I had to recuse myself from direct involvement, because I grew up on Churchill Road, and my parents still lived there, but advised them to attend a forthcoming "Peoples Day" I was advancing for the governor in Charlotte. On the appointed day, they attended at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse and had one of the first interviews with the governor, of the day. As was my duty, I briefed the Gov and Butch Gallagher, the Ombudsman (also from Charlotte) at the beginning of each 5-minute interview session on the subject matter, then returned to my post outside the chamber to facilitate interviews and security.

After the interview with the Wendover folk, Gallagher came out with them and asked that I cancel the appointed lunch w/some bankers and local politicos (Mayor Belk, IIRC) and get the SBI (or Highway Patrol) cruiser brought around at noon. Gallagher, the governor, and, I think, someone from the Mecklenburg delegation rode out Providence Road to Wendover, saw the trees, which the NCDOT had said were in the way. The governor instructed Gallagher to communicate the governor's desire to save the trees if at all practicable. And they did.

I don't know how much longer those trees will last. I would guess they were acorns around 1940? Our willow oaks at St. Martin's on Seventh Street were planted in 1919 (acorns, c.1909), and we've already had to take down four of them due to drought-related fungus disease.

Because I was curious about Wendover Road in those days, Elliot sent me the following description of life in that part of the city in the days before SouthPark, Route 4, etc. It's edited for brevity:

I rode a bike home from Eastover Elementary in the '50s & walked (hitched) home from AG [Alexander Graham Junior High] in the early '60s, so I'm pretty familiar with Wendover. The great canopy of willow oaks ran from Sharon to Providence, ended there, so the section of Wendover to Randolph must have been developed differently. I can remember that when the Belt Road was being planned, there were alternative routes, including one going through MPCC [Myers Park Country Club] golf course, which would have reduced it to a 9-hole course. The club was offered the option of accepting that route, and the city would build them an additional 18-hole course out further, but they and the school board turned it down (school board because of proximity to Myers Park/AG/Selwyn campus). ... Wendover ended at Randolph, continuing in the form of Wendover Circle, a half loop, that ran around a great estate that is now home to the "giant bagels," spawned Churchill, then flowed down the hill to the creek where it joined Randolph.

At the creek was an old grist mill -- I 'spose it's still there -- and there were cotton fields twixt Billingsley & the creek--plenty of crawdads in the creek. Churchill was bifurcated by the city limits, which meant that the kids on the upper end had to pay tuition to go to Eastover, AG, MP, rather than the county schools. 'Course, the kids across the cotton fields couldn't go to either set, being that they had the poor judgment to be born by black parents, so they just walked next door to Billingsley School. ... It was a great neighborhood in which to grow up ... we played in the woods all day, and camped in them at night. Sort of a Blowing Rock, but an easy ride on bus # 7 uptown, to the Y, movies, Belk's, and Tanner's.

John Elliot

PS: My grandfather, R. M. Mauldin, was chairman of the school board who "visioned" having 3 schools on one campus, separated by only trees and creeks. My dad worked out the swap that moved the Y to the old AG building on Morehead, and AG out to Jimmy Harris' farm, making the vision happen. But that's another story.