First National Bank of Charlotte

Last updated April 01, 2019

First National Bank of Charlotte was a bank located in Charlotte, North Carolina from 1865 until 1930.

Charlotte is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2017, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population was 859,035, making it the 17th-most populous city in the United States. The Charlotte metropolitan area's population ranks 22nd in the U.S., and had a 2016 population of 2,474,314. The Charlotte metropolitan area is part of a sixteen-county market region or combined statistical area with a 2016 census-estimated population of 2,632,249.

Early history

In 1853, John Wilkes, the son of Admiral Charles Wilkes, moved to Charlotte to supervise his family's mining and milling business. He served under the Confederacy during the Civil War, but he was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Soon after the end of the war, Wilkes started the first national bank in the South after the war. By December 15, 1865, Wilkes had received $500,000 in U.S. bonds. The same year, First National Bank became the only North Carolina bank printing National Bank Notes.

Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies, and in many navies is the highest rank. It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM". The rank is generally thought to have originated in Sicily from a conflation of Arabic: أمير البحر‎, amīr al-baḥr, "commander of the sea", with Latin admirabilis ("admirable") or admiratus ("admired"), although alternative etymologies derive the word directly from Latin, or from the Turkish military and naval rank miralay. The French version – amiral without the additional d – tends to add evidence for the Arab origin.

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The Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy and the South, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves.

This bank played a major role in Charlotte's growth, as did the city's railroad access to other areas. Rufus Y. McAden, founder of the mills and mill village that became McAdenville, succeeded Wilkes as bank president in 1867. Robert M. Oates became president in 1891, and McAden's son Henry M. McAden served as president from 1907 until the bank's failure in 1930.^[1]

McAdenville, North Carolina Town in North Carolina, United States

McAdenville, also known as Christmas Town USA, is a small town in Gaston County, North Carolina, United States. It is a suburb of Charlotte and located east of Gastonia. The population was 651 at the 2010 census.

Later years

Rufus McAden and his family actually lived in the bank's three-story building on South Tryon Street. His son demolished the building in 1925 and chose Louis Asbury, a leading Charlotte architect who had designed Henry's Myers Park home in 1916, to design what became the second tallest building in the state. The opening of the 250-foot, 21-story building, built at a cost of $1.8 million, was announced September 9, 1927, and The Charlotte News proclaimed Charlotte's strength as a banking center.

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An architect is a person who plans, designs and reviews the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that have human occupancy or use as their principal purpose. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, which derives from the Greek, i.e., chief builder.

Myers Park is a neighborhood and historical district in Charlotte, North Carolina.

112 Tryon Plaza is a 280 ft (85 m) 22-story skyscraper in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was the second tallest building in North Carolina when completed in 1927, and the tallest building in Charlotte for about 35 more years. It is currently the 21st tallest building in the city. Located on "The Square" at the corner of Trade St. and Tryon St. adjacent to a pocket park, this building has a premiere location in Uptown Charlotte, also known as Charlotte center city. In 2006 it was sold for $12 million to the Simpson Organization.

Later in 1927, the Federal Reserve opened its branch office on the building's nineteenth floor. This showed Charlotte appeared likely to become a major banking center. However, three years after it opened, the building was only 30 percent occupied. The bank would not rent to just anyone, unlike the nearby Johnston Building.^[1]

The Johnston Building, also known as the Midtown Plaza, is a 17-story skyscraper in Charlotte, North Carolina with an approximate height of 81m. The building's official height has never been released. Originally 15 stories when completed in 1924, it was the tallest building in Charlotte until 1926.

Failure

On December 4, 1930, First National Bank announced it was closed. One reason given for the bank's failure was the ambitious building program, combined with the inability to make money from the new skyscraper. At the time, First National had only $1.6 million in deposits, the least of seven commercial banks in the city.^[1]

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Mecklenburg County is a county located in the southwestern region of the state of North Carolina, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 919,618. It increased to 1,034,070 as of the 2015 estimate, making it the most populous county in North Carolina and the first county in the Carolinas to surpass 1 million in population. Its county seat and largest city is Charlotte.

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References

1 2 3 "Survey and Research Report, First National Bank Building, 110 - 112 South Tryon, Charlotte, N.C." Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission. Retrieved 2015-03-04.

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[cmhpf-1] 1 2 3 "Survey and Research Report, First National Bank Building, 110 - 112 South Tryon, Charlotte, N.C." Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission. Retrieved 2015-03-04.