by Chris Pearce

Created on: April 10, 2009   Last Updated: May 26, 2009

Charlotte, North Carolina, became known as "The City of Churches" due to its high concentration of churches. In earlier times, people of many denominations were attracted to the area to escape the religious persecution they suffered elsewhere. This tolerance has continued to the present day.

Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, seeking religious and political freedom, were settling in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County by the mid 18th century. Around 1750, a Presbyterian congregation settled at Rocky River. Another group of Presbyterians arrived at Sugaw Creek. These were quickly followed by churches at Steele Creek, Hopewell, Poplar Tent, Center, Providence, and Philadelphia in the 1760s.

Charlotte was first settled in 1755 and became a town in 1768, but no church was established there until the following century. In 1815, land was set aside at Trade and Church Streets for religious purposes. A church building was commenced in 1818 and finally completed in 1823. Various denominations used it. The debt on it was taken over by the Presbyterians in 1832 and they built a larger church in 1833. It still stands and is now known as the First Presbyterian Church.

Other denominations were attracted by the region's religious tolerance. The Methodists built a log church, the Harrison Methodist, in about 1810. Their first church in Charlotte was erected in 1833, being replaced in 1859 by the current building. The Baptists also constructed their first church in the town in 1833. It disappeared before a more permanent structure, the Beulah Baptist Church of Christ, was built in 1855. The Episcopals set up a church, St Peter's, on West Trade Street in Charlotte in 1834. The town's first Roman Catholic Church was established in 1852 on South Tryon Street. A Lutheran church, St Mark's, was constructed in 1859.

These denominations continued to build new churches and by 1903 Charlotte boasted 64 churches in a city of about 20,000 people. More religious groups continued to be attracted to the city. A Jewish presence was established by 1875 with the Hebrew Benevolent Society, before a synagogue was built in 1918. A Seventh Day Adventist Church started in 1914. A Christian Science Church was set up in Charlotte in 1920. A Moravian Church, the Little Church on the Lane, was built in 1924. The Greek Orthodox congregation bought premises on South Boulevard from Westminster Presbyterian in 1929.

By 1940, Charlotte had 146 churches for a population of 100,000. The city had always attracted church-going

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