The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Charlotte (North Carolina)

CHARLOTTE, a city of North Carolina, capital of Mecklenburg co., on Sugar creek, 125 m. W. S. W. of Raleigh; pop. in 1870, 4,473, of whom 1,880 were colored. The Charlotte, Columbia, and Augusta, the Wilmington, Charlotte, and Rutherford, and the North Carolina railroads meet here. A plank road 120 m. long connects it with Fayetteville. The city is situated upon the gold range of the Atlantic states, and its prosperity is principally owing to the working of the mines in its vicinity. A branch mint for coining gold was established here in 1838, which up to March 31, 1861, when it was closed by the civil war, produced 1,206,954 pieces, valued at $5,048,641 50. It was reopened in 1869, and up to June 30, 1872, $50,751 63 in unparted bars were produced. The total deposits to that date amounted to $5,118,644 89. Under the coinage act of 1873, this establishment ceased to be operated as a mint, but is continued as an assay office. Charlotte contains several schools, churches, and cotton factories, and three banks with an aggregate capital of $700,000. It has two daily, two tri-weekly, and four weekly newspapers, and a monthly periodical. The “Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence” was adopted here, May 31, 1775. The British troops occupied Charlotte in 1780, and for a time it was the American headquarters.