Happy Friday!
Trolley service to the Myers Park suburb commenced on September 1, 1912. The Myers Park line branched off the system already serving the Elizabeth neighborhood and extended southward and entered Myers Park here, at the intersection of Fourth Street and Queens Road. The Stephens Company, a real estate firm run by George Stephens and dedicated to the construction and prosperity of the suburb, erected a combination trolley gate and waiting station at the entrance, seen above right after its construction in October 1912. The gate and stations were probably designed by Myers Park’s architect, John Nolen, and were made entirely of granite purchased from South Carolina. Other stone waiting stations were constructed farther sown the trolley line, at Queens Road and Hermitage Road, but the entrance gate at Fourth and Queens was the only one of its kind in the city.
This image shows another angle of the gates taken in 1912 soon after they were finished.
The gate and the stations were largely ornamental but were seen as symbols of the grandeur of the brand-new neighborhood. Meyers Park flourished and became the city’s most elegant address, and soon it gained several new entry points besides the one marked by the trolley gate. Streetcar service was discontinued in March 1938, as the city had largely come to rely on bus and automobile transportation. The trolley entrance gate was eventually demolished to allow cars to make turns onto Queens Road, but the two waiting stations flanking the road still exist today as a remind of Myers Park’s beginnings as a streetcar suburb. Although much as changed in the city in the past century, one thing has not: this intersection and its stone guards still mark the main entry point into Charlotte’s most lavishly planned suburb.
Until next week!
Chris.
Email me at chris@704shop.com if you have interesting Charlotte facts you’d like to share or just to provide feedback!
Information taken from:
Charlotte Then and Now, Brandon Lunsford, 2013.
“We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.” – Frederick Douglass