A Brief History of Mecklenburg County
Part V: Modern Era
Mecklenburg County's growth continued during World War I with the establishment of Camp Greene, a major military base, at the western edge of Charlotte and continued into the 1920s. Especially important during the 1920's was the "Good Roads Program" of Governor Cameron Morrison. A resident of Mecklenburg County, Morrison turned the state's resources toward the development of a system of paved highways throughout North Carolina. These roads had a dramatic impact upon rural Mecklenburg, as residences were upgraded, small towns expanded, and new schools were built. One particular influence was the Julius Rosenwald Fund, supplying money to build twenty-six high quality schools for blacks in Mecklenburg County during the 1920s. Often located near a church, these schools became centers for black communities.
The Rosenwald School at Newell
In Charlotte, the 1920s was a time of development as new industries flocked to the city. By 1930, Charlotte had surpassed Charleston as the largest city in the Carolinas. Increasing numbers of farmers began to sell their land for development or leave the farm for greater opportunities in urban areas. The 1920s witnessed the beginning of the decline in the number of Mecklenburg County farms. In 1900, Mecklenburg had been 32.7 percent urban and 62.3 percent rural. By 1910, the urban population was 50.7 percent. And in 1920, Mecklenburg's urban population had grown to 57.4 percent, and farm production declined for the first time. Between 1930 and 1940 the number of farms in Mecklenburg County dropped from 3,773 to 3,223.
As machines and industrialization took command of rural life after 1900, farmers were increasingly forced to abandon traditional farming methods. Since the Civil War, most Mecklenburg County farmers had been small landowners or tenant farmers using mules, plows, wagons, hoes, sacks for picking, and scales for their cotton production. But with the advance of the boll weevil into North Carolina around 1920, farmers were forced to turn to more expensive planting and cultivation techniques. Cotton production moved westward where modern machinery and more advanced farming practices could be used without the tenant farming system.
The final blow for Mecklenburg farmers came in the form of the emergency programs of Roosevelt's New Deal. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration began to encourage the reduction of crop acreage and livestock production, driving small farmers and sharecroppers from the land and effectively ending the Reconstruction Era tenant system. This was not a total loss. To educate those remaining farmers and future farmers, several agricultural buildings were constructed at schools. Long Creek Agricultural Building is an excellent example of this type of facility. These bad economic times produced a serious decline of construction in rural Mecklenburg (except for schools) from the 1930s, however.
Long Creek Agricultural Building
After World War II, a new era in Mecklenburg County history began to unfold. By 1948 a new ring of suburbs sprang up around the early twentieth century neighborhoods of Charlotte. Accommodations for the automobile also began to have greater impact with the widening of roads, such as Independence Boulevard in the 1940s and the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. With better roads, stores began to migrate from the center city to suburban shopping centers. Suburban sprawl was backed by people who viewed the older center city as rundown and dangerous. These new developments meant that rural Mecklenburg County would see rapid growth.
Adapted by Bruce R. Schulman from Historic Rural Resources in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina by Sherry J. Joines and Dr. Dan L. Morrill