(Railroad platform image - Courtesy of the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room - Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.)

Distribution and Marketing

In the years following the Civil War and Reconstruction, Charlotte grew in importance as a commercial, marketing, wholesale, and distribution center.  Farmers flocked to Charlotte with their cotton crop, lured by the city's railroad lines to northern markets and rapidly developing cotton industry.  Merchants and cotton buyers vied for the business offering competitive rates for quality cotton and accepting cotton in exchange for goods.  A municipal cotton press, weighing platforms, warehouses, and buying offices clustered together in Charlotte's cotton district, known as "the wharf."  The wharf, so named because the area had been the site of the Confederate Naval Yard during the war, was located along the railroad in the eastern part of the city.  The cotton district became a bustling center of activity and merchants tried to locate their establishments as close to the wharf as possible in order to attract the business of the farmers selling their cotton.

 

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