I was in Charlotte, NC recently. I was there to attend the 42nd annual Applied Geography Conference. As is customary in my conference travels, I used any spare time I had to explore the local craft beer scene. This was my third visit to Charlotte, since 2012, so I actually was quite familiar with the growth of the city’s craft beer sector. During my last visit in 2016, I had visited three Charlotte breweries (Birdsong Brewing Company, The Unknown Brewing Company, and Heist Brewery) as part of a  Charlotte Brews Cruise tour. Charlotte has also been one of my case study cities for my academic work on America’s burgeoning craft brewing industry. With my colleague Isabelle Nilsson of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, we examined the impact of craft breweries on property values. Our research showed that being within one-half mile of a craft brewery increased the value of single-family homes by 9.3%. In another piece we examined the role that craft breweries have played in the revitalization of Charlotte’s historic NoDa neighborhood.

NoDa is a fascinating neighborhood, with historical ties to North Carolina’s textile industry. Production of textiles began in North Charlotte (as NoDa was known then) in 1903 with the opening of Highland Park Mill No. 3. Two other mills were subsequently opened in the neighborhood- Mecklenburg Mill In 1905 and Johnson Mill In 1916. At that time, North Charlotte was geographically separated from the city of Charlotte, being located three miles north of the city.

In close proximity to the Highland Park and Mecklenburg mills were mill villages. These villages, constructed by mill owners, provided homes for the mill workers and their families. Mill villages had basic services such as a school and a church. At the nexus of the two mill villages was a commercial district, where services such as grocery stores, a barber’s shop, a drug store, etc. could be found.

By the mid-1960s, low-cost labor in developing economies in Asia and Latin America posed a serious threat to the American textile industry. Mills closed and employment dwindled. The impact of this overseas competition was felt in and around the Charlotte region, The Highland Park Mill No. 3 and the Mecklenburg Mill closed in 1969, while the Johnson Mill closed in 1975. The closing of the mills signaled tough times for North Charlotte. People left the neighborhood, seeking employment elsewhere and abandoned homes fell into a state of disrepair. Poverty, crime, low-income housing, drug houses and prostitution came to characterize the neighborhood.

The revitalization of the neighborhood began in the 1980s, when two artists, Paul Sires and Ruth Ava Lyons, opened the Center of the Earth Gallery on North Davidson Street. Other artists quickly followed, and North Charlotte became a small, but thriving, arts community. The neighborhood still faced challenges, however, and remained rough around the edges. The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was not good to the neighborhood , which was now known as NoDa. The neighborhood survived, however, and today is home to a diversified range of businesses, including cafes, restaurants, bakeries, yoga studios, and breweries.

The first brewery to call NoDa home was NoDa Brewing Company, which opened its doors in October 2011. Today, the neighborhood is home to ten breweries. While in Charlotte, I had the opportunity to visit four of them Birdsong Brewing Co., Heist Brewery, Protagonist, and Wooden Robot Brewery. Of the four, Heist has the strongest connection to the neighborhood’s historic textile industry. It is, in fact, located in the old Highland Park Mill. Inside the brewery, their is a framed description of the mill’s history.

Visible from Heist Brewery are a number of the single-Storey homes once occupied by mill families. Some of these have been restored by local residents. The mill homes are protected by protective easements, a legal document signed by both the homeowner and Preservation North Carolina, which prevent homeowners from making changes that compromise the home’s historical integrity. As recently as 2015, NoDa’s refurbished mill homes were selling for anywhere between the high $200,000 and the mid $400,000.

Charlotte has a vibrant craft beer scene. As is the case in many cities I have visited, craft beer has a habit of connecting the beer drinker with a community’s history. To a large extent, this is due to the fact that many craft breweries, in search of inexpensive real estate, occupy older abandoned buildings in historically interesting neighborhoods. Thanks to my wonderful hosts, Isabelle Nilsson and her husband Jeff, I had the opportunity to experience the NoDa neighborhood, complete with its wonderful craft breweries and fascinating history.

Further Reading:

Glass, Brent D. 1992. The Textile Industry in North Carolina: A History. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Reid, Neil and Isabelle Nilsson. From mill district to brewery district: Craft beer and the revitalization of Charlotte’s NoDa neighborhood. Invited chapter for inclusion in Beer Places: The Micro-Geographies of Craft Beer, by Daina Cheyenne Harvey, Ellis Jones, and Nate Chapman (Eds).