Ford Motor Company

In the record (18)

1. c. 1700

   The Great Trading Path (also called the Occaneechi Path) was a colonial-era trade route running roughly 800 miles, connecting Virginia's Fort Henry (Petersburg) south through the North Carolina Piedmont to Cherokee and Catawba territory; in North Carolina it crossed the Flat, Little, Eno, Haw, Uwharrie, and Yadkin rivers before turning south at the Trading Ford (near present-day Spencer) toward the Catawba and Waxhaw villages below Charlotte.

   Trading Path (NC highway marker L-36)Catawba NationOld Waxhaw Presbyterian ChurchRobert HenryJesse Spencer

   Source · checked 2026-08-13

2. 1761

   Thomas Spratt later settled along Nation Ford Road roughly two miles north of the ford on the Catawba River, at the invitation of the Catawba Nation, which leased him several thousand acres of farmland -- making him the first documented tenant to lease land directly from the tribe.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   Catawba NationThomas Spratt

   Source · checked 2026-08-13

3. 1786

   In 1786 the North Carolina legislature chartered a ferry "near a place known by the name of Old Nation Ford" on the Catawba River, to be operated by Thomas Spratt and Daniel Sturgis.

   Catawba NationThomas SprattDaniel Sturgis

   Source · checked 2026-08-13

4. 1827

   Farmer James Capps discovered gold on his land off Beattie's Ford Road, about five miles north of Charlotte; he leased the site to foreign investors and it became the most productive mine in Mecklenburg County.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   James Capps

   Source · checked 2026-08-14

5. 1838

   In 1838 the Capps Gold Mine on Beattie's Ford Road near Charlotte employed 28 enslaved men and 10 enslaved women as forced mining labor.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   Source · checked 2026-08-14

6. 1867

   W.R. Myers, a Charlotte businessman (identified elsewhere as a former Confederate colonel), donated the initial eight acres of land on Beatties Ford Road in northwest Charlotte on which Biddle Memorial Institute was built.

   Johnson C. Smith UniversityBiddle Memorial InstituteMary Deborah Baird BiddleW.R. MyersHenry J. Biddle

   Source · checked 2026-08-13

7. 1914

   Ford Motor Company had operated smaller Charlotte branch assembly locations since 1914 (first at 222 N. Tryon St., then 210 E. Sixth St.) before consolidating operations into the larger 1924 Statesville Avenue plant, part of Ford's national strategy of assembling cars near regional markets to cut shipping costs.

   William Tryon

   Source · checked 2026-08-13

8. 1924

   Camp North End's developer states the Ford plant site was chosen in part for its proximity to railroads, which allowed efficient shipment of auto parts and, later, military supplies — a self-interested source (the site's current developer promoting its own history) whose framing is retained here for transparency but flagged as tier 5.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   Camp North EndNorth Carolina Military Institute

   Source · checked 2026-08-13

9. 1924

   Ford Motor Company completed a modern one-story Model T/Model A assembly plant on Statesville Avenue in Charlotte in 1924, designed by prominent industrial architect Albert Kahn.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   Albert Kahn

   Source · checked 2026-08-13

10. 1924

    In its first partial year of operation the Charlotte Ford plant assembled 10,463 cars and 1,111 trucks (1924); production rose to 51,708 cars and 8,324 trucks the following year, 1925.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Source · checked 2026-08-13

11. 1924

    The Statesville Avenue Ford plant totaled roughly 240,000 square feet on a 76-acre site, cost about $2 million to build, and had capacity to assemble around 400 cars per day.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Source · checked 2026-08-13

12. 1929

    A Levine Museum of the New South digital exhibit on Camp North End instead states the Ford plant opened in 1925, ended Model T production in 1927 in favor of the Model A, and closed in 1929 following the stock market crash — a chronology that conflicts with both Camp North End's own site and The Henry Ford museum's dates.

    Camp North EndMint Museum of ArtLevine Museum of the New SouthHarvey B. Gantt CenterNASCAR Hall of FameRobert Henry

    Source · checked 2026-08-13

13. 1932

    Camp North End's history states the vacated Ford factory sat empty for nearly a decade after its closure until it was purchased by the U.S. Army in 1941 — meaning the site's Quartermaster Depot use dates to the World War II era, not the 1920s.

    Camp North End

    Source · checked 2026-08-13

14. 1932

    Camp North End's own history states Ford built roughly 300,000 Model T and Model A vehicles at the Statesville Avenue plant before closing the facility in 1932 amid the Great Depression.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Camp North End

    Source · checked 2026-08-13

15. 1933 · 1933-03-01

    The Henry Ford museum's official research guide states Ford's Charlotte assembly operation, which opened in September 1924, ceased production in March 1933, as the company shut down most domestic branch plants during the Depression.

    Mint Museum of ArtLevine Museum of the New SouthHarvey B. Gantt CenterNASCAR Hall of FameRobert Henry

    Source · checked 2026-08-13

16. 1941 · 1941-05-16

    The Charlotte Quartermaster Depot was formally activated on May 16, 1941, when three Army officers and 32 civilians under Lt. Col. Clare W. Woodward set up operations in the south wing of the former Ford assembly plant — a forward-pointer fact beyond the mill-crescent era, confirming Quartermaster Depot use began in the WWII era of the early 1940s, not the 1920s as initially assumed.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Alpha MillMecklenburg Cotton MillAda MillOrient MillVictor Cotton Mill

    Source · checked 2026-08-13

17. 1970

    Friendship Baptist Church's congregation, displaced from Brooklyn, built a new church at 3301 Beatties Ford Road in 1970.

    Mecklenburg PresbyteryFirst United Presbyterian ChurchFirst Baptist Church WestFriendship Missionary Baptist Church

    Source · checked 2026-08-13

18. 2020 · 2020-05-29

    On May 29, 2020, hundreds of protesters marched down Beatties Ford Road in Charlotte following George Floyd's murder; some threw rocks and bottles at police and damaged police vehicles, store windows were smashed and looting occurred at University Park Shopping Center, and police deployed pepper-spray projectiles; City Councilman Braxton Winston was among those arrested.

    Marshall ParkKing George

    Source · checked 2026-08-13