Posted on: March 24, 2023
Dr. Thomas Craven was a veteran of both World Wars, serving in the first World War as a Captain in the Medical Corps and attaining the rank of Colonel in the second war. He served as Huntersville’s mayor for seven terms and later as a commission...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 22, 2023
John Frank Lytle was born into slavery but became a prominent farmer and businessman. His farm grew cotton and corn and he owned a great deal of land. Lytle was key in developing educational opportunities for African American children and in 1926 built th...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 20, 2023
Benny Reeder is a self-taught welder and artist. His whimsical yard art has been a fixture outside of his home on Gilead Road since he began creating art out of scrap metal in the early 1990s. Utilizing materials such as old shopping carts, golf clubs, di...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 17, 2023
David Harris “Harry” Gant grew up working with his family at their sawmill. After serving in the US Navy during World War II, he began his brick-laying career. Gant started his own masonry company, McCord & Gant, with business partner and friend, Dave...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 15, 2023
William "Bill" Fite Auten served as Huntersville's Postmaster for 20 years. Known for his extravagant Christmas light display at his home on Hillcrest Drive, he was also a faithful supporter of the Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry.
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 14, 2023
Larry Banks has served as Scoutmaster of Troop 19, based at Huntersville Presbyterian Church, since 1988. During his 34-year tenure, the Troop has registered more than 525 Scouts, with 165 having earned the rank of Eagle Scout. Scoutmaster Banks has grown...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 13, 2023
Metrolina Greenhouses has been part of Huntersville's "landscape" for more than 50 years. Founded by Tom and Vickie VanWingerden who immigrated from the Netherlands in 1971, their initial 20,000-square-foot rented greenhouse has flourished into ...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 8, 2023
Rachel Miller Bellew was Huntersville’s first female Town Board Commissioner when elected in 1973. She served on the Sanitation Committee and volunteered as a school crossing guard.
150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 7, 2023
Torrence-Lytle School opened in 1937 and represented the first opportunity for African American students, elementary through high school, to attend a public school in the region where they lived. It had seven classrooms and 181 pupils. The school&rsqu...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 6, 2023
The Pottstown Community is the earliest African American neighborhood in Huntersville. Located southeast of the Town’s center, the community began as a sparsely settled area of small farms and workers’ dwellings, with churches marking the general boundari...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 4, 2023
Levera Pearson Wynn worked tirelessly to improve the lives of others. In the 1970s, she went door to door in the Pottstown community trying to get residents to support a voluntary annexation into Huntersville so residents could receive Town services. Wynn...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 3, 2023
In 1928, NCDOT solicited churches for their stone walls so the stone could be crushed and used to surface local roads. Many churchyards had stone wall boundaries to define the sacred area and keep out livestock. Hopewell Presbyterian Church had stones aro...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: March 2, 2023
Otha James Potts owned a substantial amount of land around and behind Church Street. Although initially farmland, Potts sold parcels for homes. Employed by a construction company in Charlotte, he used scrap materials from commercial construction sites to ...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: February 27, 2023
Leroy Roscoe Wynn was an agriculture and horticulture teacher at multiple Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, including Torrence-Lytle School where he taught for 18 years. In 39 years of teaching, Wynn never took a sick day. He was the first African American e...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: February 22, 2023
Caldwell Rosenwald School, 15435 NC Hwy73, was constructed in 1925 to serve African American children in the Lemley community of North Mecklenburg County. The cost of construction was $5,200; of that, $1,100 was paid by the Rosenwald Fund, $3,500 by the p...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: February 21, 2023
Richard Dalrymple was a connoisseur of jazz. At the urging of his barber, David Beatty of Beatty’s Barber Shop in Huntersville, Dalrymple met the owner of radio station WHIP 1350, who put him on the air. Dalrymple’s Jazz Party program was well-known as th...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: February 20, 2023
Bethesda Schoolhouse, circa 1898, is the oldest surviving school building for African Americans in Mecklenburg County. Officially designated as the Bethesda Colored School of Mallard Creek Township, School District # 3, it served the African American comm...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: February 17, 2023
William James Colson Sr. owned and operated Colson's Barber Shop, a two-chair, 900-square-foot shop on Gilead Road, for 42 years. When he opened his shop in 1966, haircuts were only 75 cents. Colson became a barber after losing his left leg in a hunting a...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: February 16, 2023
Huntersville School #2, located at 508 Dellwood Drive, is one of six surviving Rosenwald schools in Mecklenburg County. Also known as the “Little School,” this facility was designated a historical landmark in 2022. Rosenwald Schools played a key role in e...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: February 15, 2023
Betty Jane (BeeJay) Caldwell is an author, community activist, and advocate of Huntersville’s Pottstown Community. Through her docent reenactments at local historical sites and community presentations, Caldwell shares her knowledge and passion for her com...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: February 4, 2023
Juanita Pettice White taught French and English at the historic Torrence-Lytle High School in Huntersville during the 1960s, where she also served as a faculty advisor for the yearbook committee and the school paper, the "Torrence-Lytle Gazette."...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 31, 2023
Isaac Torrence Graham was the first and only principal of Torrence-Lytle High School (1937-1966) in Huntersville. After Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools integrated its schools, Graham became the assistant principal of North Mecklenburg High School.
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 27, 2023
Dr. Hillis Ledbetter Seay was a local physician who practiced medicine in the Huntersville area for more than 50 years. He did extensive clinical research in the treatment of tuberculosis and served as superintendent of the Mecklenburg Tubercular Sanitori...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 24, 2023
William Amos Hough, Jr., a lifelong educator, served as principal of North Mecklenburg High School from 1955 to 1974. The NC Association of Educators named him Principal of the Year in 1970 and he was one of the first inductees into the school’s Hall of F...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 20, 2023
James Hoyt Wilhelm was one of 11 children born to tenant farmers in Huntersville and began his baseball career in the Lake Norman area. Wilhelm served in the US Army during World War II and was awarded the Purple Heart. Nicknamed “Old Sarge&...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 19, 2023
Richard Barry was a tanner, legislator, and one of the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. He was co-founder of Hopewell Presbyterian Church and is buried in the church’s cemetery. Barry is also remembered for recovering Gene...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 12, 2023
Dwight Shaw Cross Jr. returned home after serving as a pilot in the Air Force and went to work for his dad at Cross Chevrolet, which he later owned. He served on the Huntersville Community Council, coached Little League, and was elected to the Huntersvill...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 11, 2023
Ryder Michael Ryan, a professional baseball pitcher, was born in Huntersville and attended North Mecklenburg High School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ryan won a silver medal with Team USA at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, making fou...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 10, 2023
Huntersville Police Chief John Albert Rape was killed in the line of duty while questioning a suspect on a burglary call during the early morning hours of January 1, 1938. His murder remains unsolved. Rape was 34 years old.
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 6, 2023
Andrea Stinson attended North Mecklenburg High School and was selected as Female Player of the Year for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association in 1986-87. She was often seen participating in open gym at the David B. Waymer Recreation Center. ...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 5, 2023
General William Lee Davidson was a Revolutionary War officer who died protecting Cowan’s Ford from an enemy crossing. Although the battle was lost, the outnumbered army’s efforts bought the patriots invaluable time later in the war. He...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 4, 2023
Margaret “Belle” Banks was Chairman of the Board for Central Piedmont Community College during the organizational period leading to the establishment of the North Campus in Huntersville. She served for 12 years as a commissioner on the...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 1, 2023
Spencer Allen Irvin served the Huntersville community as Fire Chief for 39 years. He served in the US Marine Corps during the Korean Conflict and received a Purple Heart. Irvin was the owner of Irvins Body Shop and enjoyed building fire trucks for local f...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places
Posted on: January 1, 2023
William LeGette Blythe made his name as one of the most respected journalists and versatile authors of Mecklenburg County. He worked for The Charlotte News and The Charlotte Observer as a journalist before starting to write his own award-winning books.?Bl...
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150 Anniversary - Notable Names & Places