William Tryon
colonial governor of North Carolina
colonial governor of North Carolina
In the record (26)
c. 1700
Two Native American trading paths crossed at what is now the corner of Trade and Tryon Streets in Charlotte -- an east-west route (part of the network linking Cherokee territory to the Iroquois, later called the Great Trading Path) and the north-south route that settlers moving down the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania and Virginia would follow -- and a small trading settlement grew up at this crossroads before Charlotte was formally founded.
Independence Square (Trade & Tryon)Trading Path (NC highway marker L-36)
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1755
In 1755, surveyor Thomas Polk built his home at the spot where two Indian trading paths crossed -- a site that decades later became "the Square," the intersection of Charlotte's Trade and Tryon Streets. That same year he married Susannah Spratt, of the Spratt settler family.
Independence Square (Trade & Tryon)Thomas PolkSusannah Spratt
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1766
Mecklenburg County's first courthouse -- a log building raised on ten-foot brick pillars in the English tradition, leaving an open ground floor used as a market for selling animals and produce -- was built at the intersection of Trade and Tryon streets; sources differ on the exact construction year, citing either 1766 or 1768, and it served as the county courthouse for about 42 years until replaced by a brick courthouse in 1810.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Independence Square (Trade & Tryon)Mecklenburg County Courthouse
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1767 · 1767-01-15
On January 15, 1767, Abraham Alexander, Thomas Polk, and John Frohock purchased 360 acres from George Augustus Selwyn for ninety pounds as the site for the town of Charlotte; commissioners then laid out one hundred acres in half-acre lots on a grid of streets, with the east-west trading path becoming Trade Street and the Great Wagon Road becoming Tryon Street (named for royal governor William Tryon).
Trading Path (NC highway marker L-36)George AlexanderAbraham AlexanderSamuel C. AlexanderThomas PolkAugustus BechtlerKing GeorgeJohn FrohockGeorge Augustus Selwyn
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1768
The town of Charlotte was formally incorporated in 1768 following advocacy by Thomas Polk, one of Charlotte's founders and a state legislator (and great-uncle of future U.S. President James K. Polk); the county courthouse stood at the center of the Trade-and-Tryon street grid, drawing farmers who combined legal business at court with trading, cementing Charlotte's role as the county's main trading town.
Queen City Drug StoreMecklenburg County CourthouseThomas Polk
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1768
Thomas Polk was instrumental in having Charlotte designated the Mecklenburg County seat under the 1768 town charter; the county courthouse at Trade and Tryon was built directly across from his homestead.
Independence Square (Trade & Tryon)Mecklenburg County CourthouseThomas Polk
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1770
In 1770 the North Carolina Colonial Assembly passed legislation for 'the founding, establishing, and endowing of Queen's College, in the Town of Charlotte,' funded in part by a tax on spirituous liquors in Mecklenburg County; Governor William Tryon, grateful to Presbyterians who had aided him during the Regulator conflict, ratified the charter on January 15, 1771.
Queen's CollegeElizabeth College
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1771
Queen's College opened operating out of a building erected by Thomas Polk at the southeast corner of South Tryon and Third Streets in Charlotte, with advertisements for the college appearing in newspapers beginning July 1771; the college operated through 1771-1772 without final royal approval of its charter, with Edmund Fanning (Yale 1757, Harvard 1764) nominally selected as president, though he likely never served due to his role suppressing the Regulator Movement.
Queen's CollegeElizabeth CollegeThomas PolkEdmund Fanning
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1865
The Confederate government conducted its business out of the Bank of North Carolina's Charlotte branch office from April 19 to April 22, 1865, before its remaining cabinet meetings shifted to the William Phifer House on North Tryon Street, where they continued through April 26.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government CenterQueen City Drug StoreBank of North Carolina
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1865 · 1865-04-19
Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his fleeing government arrived in Charlotte on April 19, 1865, after a four-day journey by wagon from Greensboro, and set up headquarters at the Bank of North Carolina's Charlotte branch office on Tryon Street.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government CenterBank of North CarolinaThomas JeffersonJefferson Davis
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1865 · 1865-04-19
Jefferson Davis learned of Abraham Lincoln's assassination while standing at the corner of Tryon and Fourth Streets in Charlotte, as he was about to enter the Lewis F. Bates residence where he was lodging.
Thomas JeffersonJefferson Davis
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1865 · 1865-04-20
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's Charlotte Mecklenburg Story history timeline states that Confederate President Jefferson Davis met with his complete cabinet for the last time on April 20, 1865, at William Phifer's home on North Tryon Street, even though the government's regular headquarters remained the Bank of North Carolina branch on Tryon Street; the meeting was moved to the Phifer House because of the illness of a cabinet member.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government CenterBank of North CarolinaThomas JeffersonJefferson Davis
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1865 · 1865-04-26
According to NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources historical markers, Jefferson Davis met with his complete Confederate cabinet for the last time as a full body on April 26, 1865, at the William Phifer House on North Tryon Street in Charlotte, where the group conceded defeat while Davis planned an escape route toward the Mississippi River and ultimately Mexico; Davis departed Charlotte that same day.
Thomas JeffersonJefferson Davis
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1891
Beyond Dilworth, Edward Dilworth Latta went on to partner with tobacco magnate J.B. Duke to construct the Mercantile Building on First Street, and separately built the Latta Arcade and Latonia Building on South Tryon Street, and donated more than 40 acres for Charlotte public parkland without racial restrictions.
Edward Dilworth LattaJames B. Duke
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1891 · 1891-05-18
At 3:00 p.m. on May 18, 1891, Charlotte's first electric streetcar departed from the intersection of Trade and Tryon Streets bound for Dilworth, the suburb the Four Cs (Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company) had built on 422 acres purchased in South Charlotte — infrastructure funded by cotton-mill-era capital.
Independence Square (Trade & Tryon)Alpha MillMecklenburg Cotton MillAda MillOrient MillVictor Cotton MillCharlotte Street RailwayCharlotte Electric Railway
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1891 · 1891-05-18
At 3:00 p.m. on May 18, 1891, Charlotte's first electric streetcar departed from Independence Square at the intersection of Trade and Tryon Streets, heading toward the new suburb of Dilworth — two days before Dilworth's own opening-day celebration.
Independence Square (Trade & Tryon)Charlotte Street RailwayCharlotte Electric Railway
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1909
The Independence Building (originally called the Realty Building), designed by architect Frank Pierce Milburn of Milburn, Heister and Company and built by J. A. Jones, was completed in 1908-1909 at the northwest corner of Independence Square (Trade and Tryon Streets) as a 12-story, steel-framed high-rise generally regarded as North Carolina's first true skyscraper.
Independence Square (Trade & Tryon)J.A. JonesFrank Pierce Milburn
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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.
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1924
The Johnston Building on South Tryon Street, designed by New York architect William Lee Stoddart for textile investor Charles Worth Johnston, opened in 1924 as a roughly 15-story uptown office tower, briefly standing among the tallest buildings on Charlotte's skyline and housing cotton brokers, insurance agents, attorneys, and realty firms.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Charles Worth JohnstonWilliam Lee Stoddart
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1926
The Wilder Building, a ten-story structure completed in 1926, added to the cluster of financial-district high-rises rising near Tryon Street during Charlotte's 1920s uptown building boom.
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1927
The First National Bank Building at 112 South Tryon Street, designed by prominent Charlotte architect Louis H. Asbury with engineering by Lockwood, Greene and Company, was constructed in 1926-1927 for First National Bank under president Henry M. McAden and was proclaimed the tallest building in the Carolinas upon its 1927 completion.
First National BankRobert HenryLouis H. AsburyHenry M. McAden
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1949
From its 1949 launch until 1955, WBTV operated out of a converted radio studio in the Wilder Building at the corner of Tryon and Third Streets in uptown Charlotte, the site later marked by NC Highway Historical Marker L-114 (dedicated November 15, 2013).
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1957
The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker program erected marker L-36 ("Trading Path") on South Tryon Street at Morehead Street in Charlotte, noting that the route -- used since the late 17th century by Virginia traders carrying guns, gunpowder, knives, jewelry, blankets, and hatchets to exchange with Catawba and other Piedmont tribes -- passed through Mecklenburg County, forking toward the Waxhaw region and toward Charlotte/Pineville.
Trading Path (NC highway marker L-36)Catawba NationOld Waxhaw Presbyterian Church
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1981 · 1981-09-27
The Independence Building was demolished by implosion on September 27, 1981, a controversial event that cleared its Trade-and-Tryon site for construction of the One Independence Center office tower — a forward-pointer fact beyond the streetcar-city era, marking the end of North Carolina's first skyscraper.
Charlotte Street RailwayCharlotte Electric Railway
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2015
The current North Carolina highway historical marker for the Mecklenburg Resolves (marker L-115), located at Tryon Street and Trade Street in Charlotte and cast in 2015, explicitly distinguishes the two documents, with official state marker documentation stating 'Unlike the widely disputed "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence," the authenticity of the resolves is not in question.'
Source · checked 2026-08-13
2020 · 2020-06-02
On June 2, 2020, thousands of protesters gathered again in Uptown Charlotte, throwing bottles at police and blocking light rail tracks; police deployed pepper spray and stun grenades, and officers on bikes chased protesters before deploying tear gas on Tryon Street by 11 p.m.
Source · checked 2026-08-13