Mecklenburg County, North Carolina: History
Before the arrival of European settlers, the area that is now Mecklenburg County was populated by the Catawba people. European settlers first arrived in about 1740.
Mecklenburg County was formed by English colonists in 1762 from the western part of Anson County, both in the Piedmont section of the state. It was named in commemoration of the marriage of King George III to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, for whom the county seat Charlotte is named. Due to unsure boundaries, a large part of south and western Mecklenburg County extended into areas that would later form part of the state of South Carolina. In 1768, most of this area (the part of Mecklenburg County west of the Catawba River) was designated Tryon County, North Carolina.
Determining the final boundaries of these "western" areas between North and South Carolina was a decades-long process. As population increased in the area following the American Revolutionary War, in 1792 the northeastern part of Mecklenburg County was taken by the North Carolina legislature for Cabarrus County. Finally, in 1842 the southeastern part of Mecklenburg County was combined with the western part of Anson County to form Union County.
The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was allegedly signed on May 20, 1775, and if the document is genuine, Mecklenburg County was the first part of the Thirteen Colonies to declare independence from Great Britain. The "Mecklenburg Resolves" were adopted on May 31, 1775. Mecklenburg continues to celebrate the declaration each year in May, the date of which is included on the flag of North Carolina.
The first gold rush in the United States, the Carolina Gold Rush, began after a 12-year-old boy named Conrad Reed discovered a gold nugget in a stream in neighboring Cabarrus County. Many miners and merchants began settling in the county during that time. The first United States branch mint was established in 1837 in Charlotte and continued operations until 1913. The original building was moved from its original site and redeveloped as a museum.
In 1917, during World War I, Camp Greene was established west of Charlotte as an army training camp. In 1919, after the end of WWI, it was decommissioned. Around the 1930s and 1940s, the population began to rapidly increase. During this time, Carolinas Medical Center and Charlotte College (now the University of North Carolina at Charlotte) were built. Lake Norman was also completed in 1964, after a five-year construction period.
In the mid-20th century, the county continued to see rapid growth. Many new government buildings were constructed, and Charlotte Douglas International Airport was expanded in 1954. By 1960, a quarter million people were living in the county, with the population reaching half a million by 1990. A proposal to form a consolidated city-county government with Charlotte was considered, but voted down by residents in 1971. The metropolitan statistical area now includes 11 counties in both North Carolina and South Carolina, and had an estimated combined population of 2,805,115 in 2023.
In mid-2020, the county was the site of the 2020 Colonial Pipeline oil spill, wherein about 2,000,000 U.S. gal (7,600,000 L) of gasoline leaked from the Colonial Pipeline in the Oehler Nature Preserve near Huntersville. It is one of the largest gasoline spills in U.S. history, and cleanup efforts are expected to last for several years.