SURVEY AND RESEARCH REPORT

On

Pineville Commercial Block

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Pineville Commercial Block and is located at 312 – 330 Main Street, Pineville, North Carolina.

2. Name and address of the present owner of the property: The present owner of the property is:

THE PERSIAN RUG HOUSE OF PINEVILLE

P.O. BOX 481

PINEVILLE, NC 28134 (310,312, 314, & 316 MAIN ST.)

 

W. A. YANDELL RENTAL AND INVESTMENT CO.

PO BOX 386 
PINEVILLE, NC 28134

 

CAPS OF PINEVILLE LLC

PO BOX 1073 
PINEVILLE, NC 28134

 

LEWIS Z JR BAILES AND PEGGY L BAILES

PO BOX 113 
PINEVILLE, NC 28134

 

CHARLES BRADFORD SMITH AND TAMMY NICHOLS

3913 LAKESIDE DR 
CHARLOTTE, NC 28270-0411

 

J. A. ARDREY (HEIRS)

PO BOX 4026 
TUBAC, AZ 85646

 

MILLER FAMILY LPI

4022 BARLCAY DOWNS DR 
CHARLOTTE, NC 28209

 

3. Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property. Photographs are available at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission office.

4. Maps depicting the location of the property: This report contains a map depicting the location of the property.  

5. Current deed book reference to the property: The tax parcel numbers associated with the property are: 20501301, 20501302, 20501303, 20501304, 20501305, 20501306, 20501307, 20501308, 20501309, and 20501310.

 

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property.

 

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property.

 

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets criteria for designation set forth in N. C. G. S. 160A-400.5:

a.      Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Pineville Commercial Block does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations:

1. The Pineville Commercial Block  embodies important elements of the culture, history, and architecture of Pineville.

2. The  Pineville Commercial Block helps us understand the story of Pineville’s most prominent families, who were not only the town’s commercial leadership but were also central in the civic cultural, and social development of the town. 

3. The Pineville Commercial Block well represents the distinctive type of small-town architecture that was once prevalent in Mecklenburg County, and thus serves as a physical reminder of  county's historic development patterns.  

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association: The Commission contends that the physical and architectural description which is included in this report demonstrates that the Pineville Commercial Block meets this criterion.

 

9. Ad Valorem tax appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a designated "historic landmark."  The current total appraised tax value of the land and improvements is $1,093,500.

 

10. Portion of property recommended for designation: The exterior of the buildings and the land included in the tax parcels are recommended for historic designation.

 

Date of preparation of this report: August 15, 2006

 

Prepared by: Stewart Gray and Hope Murphy
 

Historical Overview   

 Main Street in Pineville has been lined, for nearly a century, with the businesses and homes of the town’s commercial, political, and civic elite.  Families such as the Yandells, Yountses, and Millers began commercial development of the town shortly after the turn of the 20^th Century. While doing do so they also built the churches, schools, and recreation places, that turned the town from an intersection of two trading paths to a thriving Early 20^th Century commercial center.  The economy of Pineville was based largely on the cultivation, ginning, and milling of cotton; but many other business interests developed in the town.  Main Street, by the 1930’s, had among its businesses: 5 grocery stores, 2 barbershops, a dime store, drugstore, doctor’s office, blacksmith, and theater.

Retaining a high degree of physical integrity, the buildings along Main Street are now rare and significant artifacts that can tell us much about the town of Pineville. As an entity the 312-330 Block of Main Street embodies important elements of the culture, history, and architecture of Pineville. The buildings additionally relate the story of Pineville’s most prominent families, who were not only the town’s commercial leadership but were also central in the civic,[1] cultural, and social development of the town. 

Many other Mecklenburg County town centers, once similar to Pineville, no longer exist.  The historic streetscapes of Cornelius and Huntersville are radically altered. The structures on Main Street Pineville, with their high degree of integrity, encompass the distinctive characteristics of type, period, and method of construction once prevalent in the small towns of Mecklenburg County, and serve as a physical reminder of the town and region’s commercial past. 

Pineville, North Carolina is located approximately eleven miles south of the city of Charlotte.  The small town, originally a cluster of log cabins at the intersection of two trading paths, had its commercial beginnings as a train stop when the South Carolina Railroad opened a depot in 1852.  The town, incorporated in 1873, became a busy center for agricultural support and textiles in the next few decades.[2]  In 1890 businessmen from Charlotte opened the Dover Yarn Mill in Pineville.  By the time the Mill had added a weaving department in 1902 over two hundred people were employed at the Mill. 

In 1903 the population of Pineville reached 700; most residents were involved in some way with the cotton industry.  Those not employed by the mill labored as cotton farmers.  Autumn would bring farmers to Main Street where they would form long lines in order to have their cotton ginned.  Saturdays would also bring farmers to town shop, pay debts, or trade mules.[3] 

For most of its history the south side of Main Street has been owned by the Yandell family.  W.A. “Willie” Yandell began acquiring land on the south side of Main Street beginning in 1919.  In that year he purchased one-half acre from C.H. Griffin and his wife Rana.[4]     In a 1987 interview in the Charlotte Observer Willeen Yandell, W.A.’s daughter, recounted that when her father arrived in Pineville in 1912 Main Street was only a wagon path.  The elder Yandell, recognized that the growing town needed services like grocery stores and began to develop them. [5]

In June 1929 the business owners along the street petitioned the Mayor of the town and Board of Alderman to “grade and pave” the road.  Property owners along Main Street agreed to pay one-quarter of the cost of the project.[6]  Into the 1930’s Main Street in Pineville remained only one of two paved streets in Pineville, the other being Polk Street.  By the 1930’s Pineville housed along its two block business district:  five general stores, a dime store, a drug store, a doctor’s office, hardware store, pool room, livery stable, blacksmith, post office, icehouse, movie theatre, and funeral home.[7]

            Joe Griffin recounts that as a young boy in Pineville, during the 1930’s, most people who lived in or near Pineville shopped on Main Street.[8]  Trips to uptown Charlotte, rare in the 1930’s, became more so during World War II when gas became rationed.[9]  Griffin recounts that the sidewalk on either side of Main Street was about four feet wide.  Trees and grass were planted between the sidewalk and the road.  This grassy strip served as a place for the stores to display items on nice days.[10]

Main Street Pineville 1915

            Tom Eubanks, who grew up in the residential section of Main Street, recounts that cotton-laden, mule-drawn carts still often lined Main Street after he returned from the Korean War in 1954.[11]    He recalls that the character of the business district remained intact until the 1960’s, and changed most radically in the 1980’s.  As Charlotte grew, some of Pineville’s small-town character began to wane. In 1972 Pineville was home to 2000 people within its one square mile corporate limits. The erection of apartment complexes, malls, and the Carowinds Amusement Park three miles west of the city brought traffic congestion to the sleepy business center.[12]

A 1987 Charlotte Observer article posited that the shift in the type of retail stores located along Main Street began in 1983.  In that year the W.A. Yandell Rental and Investment Co. rented 329 Main Street to Betty Hiltz.  She opened the China Connection, an antique shop.  Within five years every address on the south side of Main Street, except two, was occupied by antique stores.  Presently over half of the store fronts on the north side of Main Street are occupied by antique stores.

In an act that signaled the end of Pineville’s rural character, Tom Eubanks helped a local farmer remove his cows from the land on which the Carolina Mall would be erected. The massive commercial development that followed along Highway 51 between Pineville and Matthews, the expansion of the City of Charlotte up to and around the boundaries of Pineville, and the completion of the nearby I-485 beltway connecting to Interstate 77, have transformed much of the area around Pineville into a largely suburban landscape.[13] 

The 312-330 Main Street block, with buildings dating from the 1910’s and 1920’s, is therefore, an important historic site. Taken as a single entity, these storefronts are critical to understanding the historic development of Pineville. The one and two-story brick corbelled buildings form, in total, a place of important historic and architectural significance from Early 20^th Century Pineville.

312 Main Street

 

312 Main Street has changed ownership many times over the years.  Initially owned by the Hoover family, the building was bought by W.A. Yandell and his wife in 1944, from S.F. Hoover and his sister Frances.[14] Yandell, as the owner of every property on the south side of Main Street, was one of Pineville’s most prominent businessmen.  While he leased most of that property to other businesses, he ran a hotel and general store from a large building at 331 Main Street.  312 Main served both families as an investment property.   The building initially served as a five-and-dime store and later became the Gold and Williamson Grocery Store.  Gold and Williamson was among the five grocery stores along Main Street, and ten that operated in the town.[15]  Grocery store ownership was a potentially lucrative business, even in a small town with so much competition.  Store owners extended credit and often held a crop lien on over-extended farmers.

314 Main Street

314 Main Street was initially the home of Pineville Savings and Loan.  Its first known president was C.S. Oakley, a prominent businessman who also owned the Pineville Lumber Company. The bank closed in 1929, during the Depression’s first wave of bank closings.  Its closing was a hardship to Pineville’s residents, as another bank did not open in Pineville until 1960 when the American Bank and Trust Company opened its doors on the south side of Main Street.[16]  W.A. Yandell filled in this gap in services by providing check cashing and loan services from his office on the other side of Main Street.   In the 1930’s, 314 Main Street housed Robert Hair’s Drugstore. Joe Griffin who worked as a soda jerk there in the 1950’s remembers that the store was a popular gathering place for Pineville’s teens.  They could buy a soda or single dip of ice cream from the soda fountain for a nickel.  It was also the first place Griffin saw a television set.  He recalls that the American Legion, as a fundraiser, displayed a television in Hair’s store and sold raffle tickets for it.  Though the TV showed a test pattern for much of the day, Griffin recounts, most everyone in town would come, and watch the television for hours.[17] 

Robert Hair, like many of Pineville’s business leaders, was also involved in the civic and political life of the town.  He served one two-year term as mayor after the Second World War, and another four years, from 1955-1959. Hair’s father, M.G. Hair, also served as Mayor of Pineville, from 1917 to 1937.[18]

            Initially located above the store was a Masonic Lodge. The Pineville Masonic Lodge No. 455 was chartered in 1893.  Though it is not clear what year the lodge first occupied this building, the lodge had been there for many years when it went defunct in May 1931. [19]   In the early 1940’s Dr. Ralph C. Reid occupied the office space over the drug store.  Dr. Reid, as the only doctor in the community, quickly outgrew the space. In 1947 he moved out of the building and opened a small community hospital, Pineville’s first.[20]

316 Main Street

316 Main Street was originally the Younts General Store.  The business was started by Samuel Younts, a blacksmith from Davidson County, who came to Pineville after the Civil War.  A 1989 Charlotte Observer article reported that Mr. Younts was one of the most successful businessmen in Pineville.  His store, according to the article, generated between $150,000 to $175,000, in receipts each year.[21]   When the town was being incorporated in 1872 Younts served as the town’s first mayors; and according to local lore, surveyors determined the town’s bounds by measuring a half mile in each direction from Younts’s store.[22]   In 1888, Younts was among the founders of the Pineville Cotton Mill.[23]  The Cotton Mill, which processed much of the 6000 bales of cotton grown in the fields nearby, was the economic backbone of the town of Pineville from its founding to its closing in 1992.

By the 1930’s, 316 Main Street became the Howard Brothers Grocery Store.  The store like the other grocers on Main Street carried a wide variety of products including meats and produce, hardware, and clothing.  This grocer remained open until the early 1970’s.  At that time a salvage business occupied the space.  In the 1980’s the store became an antique store.[24]

 318 Main Street

318 Main Street was owned until 2002 by the Miller Family.  The Miller family has owned much of the north side of Main Street since the early 1920’s.  The Miller brothers, Leightner Miller and J.R. Miller, were among the wealthiest men in town.  In addition to owning commercial property, they were among the largest farmers in Pineville.  Additionally, they owned the town’s cotton gin. Joe Griffin recalls that the gin ran night and day in the fall, after the cotton harvest.[25]  Both of the brothers participated in the civic life of Pineville, and served terms on the Pineville Board of Alderman during the 1930’s and 1940’s.[26] 

Thomas Carroll operated Carroll’s Grocery Store from this location.  The store, which began operation in the 1930’s, continued in business until the late 1960’s.  Pineville Radio and T.V. then occupied the building.[27]

SCAN MILLER PIC GRIFFIN 48

320 Main Street

The Niven Family purchased 320 Main Street from W. A. Yandell in the 1920’s. E. E. Niven and his wife Theresa owned the Niven-Mercantile Company, which leased the property to hardware store operator Charlie Howie.  Joe Howard Griffin, Sr., who worked in the store as a teenager in the 1940’s, recalls that Howie’s store served as a gathering place for local farmers on the weekends.  Open until midnight on Saturdays, the store, Griffin recounts, had customers up until that hour.  When E. E. Niven died in 1932, his wife inherited the property, which she sold back to the Yandells in 1947.[28]  In 1958 Kenneth Wilkerson purchased the hardware business from Howie. Wilkerson and his son Ken ran the business for 31 years, which closed in 1989.  Increased car traffic on Main Street made parking difficult, and the competition from the influx of large warehouse home-improvement stores contributed to the closing.[29]  Like most of the other storefronts on both sides of Main Street, 320 Main is now occupied by an antique store.

 

322 and 324 Main Street

In 1906 Walter B. Bailes bought the lot at 322 and 324 Main Street from W. A. Rodgers and S. C. Rodgers.[30] 322 Main, which is still owned by the Bailes family, is home to the purported oldest existing business in Pineville, Bailes Recreation. The business was initially a barbershop.  Men were able to receive a haircut, shave, shampoo or even shower while visiting the shop.  Owner Bryant Bailes later added a poolroom in the back of the shop. 

The shop also served as a community gathering place for men.  Bailes’s, and McCoy’s barbershop across the street, were where the men of Pineville came to catch up on local news, gossip, and talk politics.  “You never heard such arguments on politics,” Joe Griffin recounts.[31]   The store front at 324 Main Street, no longer owned by the Bailes family.   In 1913, the building served as the home for the Pineville Pharmacy and has housed a number of businesses since the 1960’s including a beauty shop and consignment store.[32] 

326-328 Main Street

            Built in the early 1900’s, 326 and 328 Main Street have been owned by the Ardrey family for most of Pineville’s history. The Ardrey Family is one of the oldest families of Pineville. Dr. Joseph Alexander Ardrey was the town’s first medical doctor and began practice there in the late 1870’s.  He was additionally one of the major investors in the Pineville Cotton Mill that opened in 1888 and a principal founder of the Pineville United Methodist Church.[33]  Dr. Ardrey’s son, J.A. Ardrey, owned a gun shop at 326 Main Street, and was among the eleven business owners who petitioned the Pineville Board of Aldermen to pave Main Street in 1929.[34]   Louise Ardrey, Dr. Ardrey’s daughter, taught school in Pineville and operated a beauty salon from 328 Main Street, the current location of the Pineville Gun Shop.[35]

330 Main Street

This building, which has been owned by the Miller family since 1948, when L.S. Miller and his wife Mary bought the property from the Niven family, was home for over 70 years to the Blankenship Feed and Oil Store.  The initial patriarch of the family was Captain Stephen Pettus Blankenship, a Civil War veteran.  Blankenship walked home to Pineville, from Maryland, after being captured by Northern troops.[36]

Captain Blankenship’s son, William F. Blankenship, Sr., opened the feed store, prior to the 1930’s.  In addition to the feed store Blankenship owned an icehouse on the south side of Main Street.  Before the Second World War, when few in Pineville owned electric refrigerators, Blankenship made daily, door-to-door deliveries of ice from his large orange-covered wagon.[37]          .

William F. Blankenship, Jr., who later ran the business with his father, became involved, like many of the other merchants on Main Street, in Pineville politics.  After losing his seat on the town board of commissioners in 1965, Blankenship was reappointed to the board in 1966,[38] and reelected to the seat in 1969.[39]   Blankenship Feed, like the Pineville Gun Shop and Bailes Recreation, stayed in business through many economic changes.  It was not until after the beginning of the 21^st Century that Blankenship Feed, perhaps the Main Street business most connected with Pineville’s agricultural past, ceased doing business.[40]  The location presently houses an antique store.

Architectural Description

The Pineville Commercial Block is located along the north side of Pineville's Main Street, and is composed of the storefronts that are numbered 312 – 330.  The buildings face south and sit adjacent to a wide concrete sidewalk.  One other building is attached to this block, however in contrast to rest of the buildings and storefronts in the Pineville Commercial Block, 310 Main Street appears to have lost its integrity with new brickwork on the facade, and stucco obscuring the exposed east side wall. 

The storefronts vary greatly in width.  Although there is only one two-story building in the block, the heights of the all the buildings vary  greatly.  Several of the storefronts feature tall parapet walls.  The designs vary from building to building, but all utilize solid brick construction.  The buildings all feature brick corbelling and wide storefront-openings supported with metal lintels.   

The Pineville Commercial Block presents ten storefronts.  An inspection of the rear of the buildings show that there are nine distinct building-spaces.  Most of the buildings are not complete buildings at all.  Instead, many of the buildings share sidewalls.  It is possible that one or more of the buildings may be composed of a facade and rear wall built between two pre-existing buildings.

312

Store-front building with a single wide opening in the façade.  The brick building was laid in American bond.  Unlike many of the storefronts in the block, the store-front opening is set in slightly from the side wall.  And unlike many of the other buildings on the block, 312 appears to be a complete building, one with four complete walls.  For example, the neighboring building to the west, 314, is built against and on top of the preexisting western wall of 312.  This may indicate that 312 is among the oldest of the surviving buildings on Main Street.    The store-front opening is now filled with metal double door and modern window framing built upon brick knee walls.  Curved sawn brackets support a shallow pent roof.  The purpose of the pent roof, a feature on most of the buildings in the block, is to both afford some protection to the entrance and the display windows, and to hide the metal lintel that allows for the large opening in the brick wall.

Above the pent roof is a recessed panel composed of six courses of brick.  Above the panel is a substantial brick cornice.  Corbelled pendants decorate the bottom of the cornice, which projects from the building.  The top of the cornice features corbelled bands sandwiching a row of bricks set at a 45-degree angle.  The eastern end of the cornice appears to have been damaged and has lost several bricks.

314

Two-story brick storefront building laid in American bond.  The building features one large opening on the first floor, and a secondary doorway.  The opening is formed with a single lintel that rests in the solid brick side walls. 314, is built against and on top of the preexisting western wall of 312.  Storefront framing may be original or an early replacement.  A doorway to the east of the storefront may lead to the second story and the door may be original.

The second floor fenestration features segmental-arched opening with double-hung windows.  Above the windows is a recessed panel.  The facade is topped with a pronounced corbelled cornice.

316

Two-story brick storefront building laid in American bond.  The building features one large opening on the first floor. The opening is formed with a single lintel that rests in the solid brick side walls. Double doors centered between plate-glass display windows may be original.  A recent shingled pent roof probably replace a smaller pent roof that was designed to cover the lintel.  The side walls are decorated with a single one-wythe-wide recess.

Above the first story, the building features three square vents topped with arched lintels and deep sills.  Above the vents is a thin corbelled band.  The parapet is crenellated and topped with a corbelled cap.  The outer crenellations feature recessed panels.

318

This building appears to have been built after the building at 316 Main, sharing its western wall.  318 is the narrowest of the storefronts included in the commercial block.  Granite foundation stones and threshold may be original.  Replacement textured brick kneewalls and an aluminum-framed door occupy the storefront opening.  Boxing hides the opening’s lintel.  Above the opening in the façade the brick are laid in American bond.    The top of the façade is highlighted with corbelled bands with corbelled pendants. 

320

A wide single storefont building, with a tall front parapet.  The store windows rest on brick knee walls made of textured brick that probably replaced earlier paneled kneewalls.  The side walls project past the façade, and it is notable that the eastern side wall features a tall one-wythe-wide recess, like those found on 316 Main.  The lack of a similar decoration on the west wall may indicate that the shared west wall predates the building at 320 Main.  Replacement doors are centered in the façade and door and windows are topped with a narrow row of window opens, now filled with solid panels, except over the doors, where the area is glazed up to the lintel.  Two posts in the window frames my help support the long lintel.  Like most of the other store fronts on the north side of Main Street, the building at 320 Main utilized metal and wooden trim to disguise the metal lintel that make possible the wide opening in the fronts of these buildings.  A building with an exposed lintel can be found across the street at 327 Main Street.  Above the fenestration, the front brick wall is recessed slightly from the solid brick mass of the side walls.  The brick are laid in American bond with five rows of stretchers between rows of headers.  A panel consisting of seven courses of brick is set back from the rest of the wall.  The top of the façade is highlighted with corbelled bands with corbelled pendants.  The wall has been capped with terra-cotta tile.

322

A small storefront that was altered sometime after 1913.  Sharing a common wall with 324, 322 appears to have been the earlier of the two buildings.  Brick work and archival photos seem to indicate that 322 was originally a much lower building with a pronounced corbelled cornice.  When 324 was constructed, their common wall was extended upward.  Later, the façade of  322 may have been added to, to accommodate additions on the rear of the building.  A taller façade would have been needed because, as on all of the buildings in the block, the composite roof slopes to the rear.  A deeper building requires a taller façade.  Low brick walls have replaced original paneled knee-walls shown in archival photos.  But the wooden-framed windows appear to have preserved the original from of the storefront and may date from the middle years of the 20^th century.  Just above the storefront windows, a very shallow pent roof extend across the width of the building.  The shallow roof is supported by curved and fluted brackets and features beaded fascia.  The wall above the fenestration is plain except for a single recesses panel composed of five courses of brick.  The top of the wall is highlighted by a corbelled cap.

324 Pineville Pharmacy ca. 1913

A very simple building with a single storefront opening that has been filled with modern brick and aluminum framed doors and windows.  Sharing a common wall with 322, 324 appears the later of the two buildings.  Brickwork and archival photos seem to indicate that 322 was originally a much lower building with a pronounced corbelled cornice.  When 324 was constructed, their common wall was extended upward.  Modern wooden boxing and moulding supports a short pent roof over the entrance, and obscures some sheet metal that appears to cover the front lintel.   The wall above the fenestration is plain except for a single recesses panel composed of five courses of brick.  The top of the wall is highlighted by a corbelled cap.  The partially exposed west wall is stepped, and still features some faded lettering from early signage. 

326-328

One of the lowest buildings in the block, 326-328 extends above neighboring 330 because of the sloping site.   This building also demonstrates the relatively pronounced slope of Main Street, with several more courses of brick under the western front window.  The building is a duplex-store-front type, with a symmetrical façade pierced by two door openings in the center of the building, and large, almost square, window openings to either side of the doors.  326 may have an original four-light, three-panel door, while 328 has a replacement door.  Both doorways featured transoms that have been filled, and both doorways now have metal security gates.  The plate-glass windows sit in opening that lack any well defined sill.  Wooden trim hides a lintel that spans the front of the building. 

The brick building was laid in American bond with five rows of stretchers between each row of headers.  The front wall is topped with a corbelled cap laid in a dentil pattern.

330

One-story storefront brick building laid in common bond with five rows of stretchers between rows of headers.  The building features one large opening.  The opening is formed with a single lintel that rests in the solid brick side walls.  The lintel supports a large brick panel above the storefront opening.  The panel is recessed back from the side walls, and features two bolt plates that may indicate that front wall is anchored to some of the interior framing.  The panel is topped with four rows of corbelling that bring the front wall flush with the side walls.  The wall is topped by another corbelled row.  The front parapet is topped with metal to prevent water from soaking into the wall.

The storefront does not appear original.  Plate glass windows are supported by low brick walls and brick has been in-filled between the windows and the original brick opening.  Between the windows, plywood panels surround recent aluminum paired single-light doors.  Unlike most of the buildings that make up the commercial block, 330 Main Street features an exposed side wall.  The west elevation is a plain parapet wall, topped with two courses of corbelled bricks.  The wall features three steps.  A simple corbelled brick flue is flush with the exterior wall.  Several bricks are missing from the top of the stack.  A single segmental-arched door opening, now in-filled with brick, is located in the side wall.  The arch is composed of two courses of soldiered headers.