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Charlotte, North Carolina - Boomtown, Banking and NASCAR
Boomtown might be the best way to describe Charlotte, North Carolina, a monetary powerhouse rising from the Carolina piedmont, a magnet for financial institutions, large corporations, sports, religion and people, people, people.
A city of more than 650,000, Charlotte anchors a metropolitan area of some 2.1 million people, and is home to two of the nation's largest financial institutions, Bankof America and Wachovia. It is also the hub of NASCAR, the stock car racing circuit, and will soon host the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Charlotte has always been something of a booming, rowdy place, tracing its roots backto the mid-18th Century when Scots-Irish and Pennsylvania German settlers built a village at the intersection of two Native American trading paths. Incorporated in 1768, the town was named after Queen Charlotte, the German-born wife of English King George III. Today, it is still colloquially-referred to as "the Queen City," a nickname it shares with Cincinnati, Ohio.
But even though its name honored the English queen, Charlotteans were not hesitant to turn on their English cousins during the Revolutionary War. In 1775, the townspeople reportedly signed what was later known as the Mecklenberg Declaration of Independence, and shipped a copy off to the Continental Congress. Although never presented to the Congress, and there is even no historic proof of its existence, the Mecklenberg Declaration led to Charlotte's establishing its own laws.
During the Revolutionary War, skirmishes fought between British troops and Charlotteans earned the village the lasting nickname "Hornet's Nest." Lord GeneralCharles Cornwallis, driven out by the skirmishers, wrote that it was a "hornet's nest of rebellion."
Charlotte was also the site of the first discovery of gold in the United States, touchingoff the country's first gold rush, and until the California Gold Rush of 1848, led the U.S.in the production of gold. The yellow metal is still mined sporadically in the streams and creeks around Charlotte.
The gold today is found in the rivers of financial services that stream in and out of theskyscrapers that pillar the skyline of Charlotte. It is the second-largest banking centerin the U.S. after New York City.
While money and power may drive the economic engine in Charlotte, the city is also known for its religious faith. Sometimes called "the city of churches," Charlotte is thehometown for world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham and headquarters for the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America and numerous seminaries and university departments of religious academia. There are more than 700 places of worship in Charlotte, mostly Protestant, but also Jewish, Islamic, Hindu and alternative faiths.
Each year for the last decade, Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city, has annually gained more than 20,000 new residents. Attracted by its economic power, new arrivals find Charlotte a bustling, building city, bulldozing the old and outdated and erecting a new city of glass, steel and concrete, while retaining its genteel manners and traditions. You will find Charlotte a special place to live, work and play, and a city where business, faith and family are honored.