On Wednesday, the Tribune detailed Mayor Chris Montgomery’s plan to promote Mooresville for a 2011 All-America City award. Mooresville last tried for the honor in 1960, and barely came up short. Here is a look at the town’s campaign 50 years ago:
When Dr. Boyce Brawley became Mayor of Mooresville in 1952, he knew the community was in a state of positive change. Citizens and leaders were energized by the successful campaign to privately-fund and build a "living tribute to veterans," the War Memorial recreation complex.
Brawley and several other town officials saw an opportunity for meaningful change in Mooresville. Their idea of change and development included new facilities, infrastructure improvements and downtown revitalization.
But the mayor also worked with civic clubs, schools and leaders like Bill Fakoury, Cora Freeze and John V. Barger to bring a swimming pool, miniature golf and tennis courts to the War Memorial recreation complex.
Mooresville's application for the 1960 All-America City award trumpeted not only the town’s modern conveniences and beautification, but basic services like paved streets and water-sewer services. Civic leaders like LuTelle Sherrill Williams supported improvements to the town library and paved the way for a new cultural center with the gift of the Isaac Harris house to the Woman’s Club.
Brawley was a Mooresville native whose father built the first homes in the Mill Village. He became a dentist at the University of North Carolina and returned to his hometown to practice and get involved in the community action.
All-America City status may have been on Brawley’s mind when one his first plans included a new, "modern" town hall. It is more likely that he and the town Commissioners knew that the growing community needed new offices and spaces for administration, fire and police departments.
After all, an All America City achieves the designation at home well before it's recognized nationally.
A brochure explained that “Mooresville’s attractive new city hall is in harmony with the tempo of progress in the city. Here are centered the modern municipal services which make for pleasant, convenient, modern living. Mooresville is a city with a plan for the future.”
Continued the brochure: “The widely-publicized ‘Mooresville Plan,’ providing an ultra-modern and beautifying design for the flow of traffic and new shopping convenience in downtown Mooresville, has been recently activated by constructing new off-street parking areas. This plan is typical of the forward-looking, progressive spirit which now is propelling Mooresville in a new era of development. Mooresville invites new neighbors, new business, new visitors and new industries to share and benefit in this progress.”
It was the concern for business and industry that led the development of "Modern Mooresville" and the revolutionary idea designed to stimulate business for downtown Mooresville merchants that was developed in 1957.
City Manager R. T. Nichol described the Mooresville Plan as including the closing of Main Street to vehicle traffic and transforming it into a mall with trees, small park areas and benches. The plan was developed around the new off-street parking lots.
The “Mooresville Plan” was adopted by the Mooresville Woman’s Club and the Junior Civic League as part of their annual program of community development and improvement. Longtime participants in the Sears Roebuck HANDS program, the organizations joined with merchants and worked with town leaders to develop a plan for a new downtown area.
"People must become pedestrians before that can become shoppers" was the basis of the plan for a pedestrian mall. The Mooresville Plan called for modernization of buildings with aluminum and steel and installation of canopies over sidewalks. The original plan called for two blocks in the downtown business district to be closed to vehicular traffic.
Led by Avery C. Craven, the Belk department store on Main Street was the first to modernize its exterior with a new facade and canopies over the sidewalk.
Other merchants followed Belk’s lead, but the majority chose to “clean-up, fix-up” buildings, emphasizing the historic architecture and installing canopies over their section of the sidewalk.
Even though the Mooresville Plan was never completed, the effort provided the town with off-street parking lots and other conveniences. Led by the Mooresville Downtown Commission, the canopies were removed recently and replaced with attractive awnings.
Lowrance Hospital also became part of the modernization plan with a new entrance, interior remodeling and stucco covering the 1930 brick structure.
Health services expanded to meet the needs of a growing population of permanent and temporary residents. Physicians and other professionals were attracted to Mooresville’s growing population, building “modern “offices around the hospital to reflect the tempo of the times."
Downtown "modernized" north and south of Center Avenue. Charlie and Joe Crowell moved their Mooresville Drug Company to the corner of Iredell Avenue and North Main Street, relocating the historic James Brown home.
The First National Bank moved to new quarters in a "modern building" in which they could make their own weather (air conditioning). The Modern Arts Cleaners replaced the ARP Church on North Main Street.
Growth, development and change made goods and services more abundant and available to citizens and visitors in new and more convenient structures.
Community action’s early days
When Brawley, R.T. Peck, Nichol and W. J. Haselden of the Chamber of Commerce began to promote the idea of a modern Mooresville that would attract business, industry, visitors and citizens, Tribune editor Tom McKnight noted that the community was in "an era of good feeling and good citizenship."
Such descriptions of Mooresville were not new. A 1914 article by D. P. Waters described the town as having a reputation of "doing things worthwhile", including the "persistent agitation in the County for good roads."
A.Y. Drummond named the town "Queen of Iredell" in 1920 writing, "Mooresville has branches of the leading fraternal organizations and civic clubs that are prominent factors in the life of the city. The Civic League and other women's clubs are always active in beautifying the city and maintaining its cleanliness. Parks, playgrounds and swimming pools add to the pleasure of the children, while skating rinks and two enclosed parks -- for football or baseball -- add to the amusement of the elder."
It was this Civic League, loosely organized in 1900, that paved the way for the improvements of the 1940s-1950s. It was they who laid the foundation for an All America City application.
Leaders like Anna Wilfong Goodman, Mary Jane Grierson, Maude Lentz and others organized to work for civic improvement. Among their first projects was to "beautify" the cotton weighing platform area across from the Depot. Cotton activity had relocated to the Lorene Oil Mills in 1908, leaving the vacant lot.
Citizens and elected officials supported the work and participated in making the area an attractive southern entrance to downtown. Named Civic League Park, the lot continues to be maintained as a place of beauty. They established Good Will Day, worked with the Red Cross, sponsored Clean Up, Paint Up Fix up Week, planted a flower garden in the area across from the depot, and campaigned for paved streets, sanitation and a public restroom downtown. They supported good works and the betterment of the community.
The Civic League paved the way for the Civic Planning Council, Inc. to take over the reins of civic responsibility and guide the town into the future.
Mooresville native Cindy Jacobs is a leading historian in the Mooresville/Lake Norman region. She is currently completing her third book about Mooresville/Iredell County, which traces the history of the Mooresville Cotton Mills. Jacobs also teaches a new Mooresville 101 class through the Continuing Education program at Mitchell Community College in Mooresville, and is active in the Mooresville Historical Society.
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