A History of Lake Norman: Fish Camps to Ferraris

by Chuck McShane

Overview

Journalist and historian Chuck McShane traces the triumphs and troubles of Lake Norman from the region's colonial beginnings to its modern incarnation.

On a muggy September day in 1959, North Carolina governor Luther Hodges set off the first charge of dynamite for the Cowan's Ford Dam project. The dam channeled Catawba River waters into the largest lake in North Carolina: Lake Norman. The project was the culmination of James Buchanan Duke's dream of an electrified South and the beginning of the region's future. Over the years, the area around Lake Norman transformed from a countryside of cornstalks and cattle fields to an elite suburb full of luxurious subdivisions and thirty-five-foot sailboats.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626195028
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/30/2014
Series:	Brief History
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 6.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Chuck McShane is a writer and historian whose work on North Carolina history and culture regularly appears in Charlotte Magazine and Our State. McShane also researches and writes about public policy and planning for the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and PlanCharlotte.org. He was curatorial assistant at the Charlotte Museum of History from 2009 to 2011 and holds an MA in American history from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He had been a reporter for the Charlotte Observer.

Table of Contents

Preface 7

Acknowledgements 9

Introduction 11

1 The Catawba and Its People 15

2 Electric River: The Flood of 1916 and Southern Power 31

3 The Cowan's Ford Dam: A Project for Its Time 41

4 The Expressway to Prosperity 67

5 Crowing Pains: Becoming a Suburb 83

6 The Lore of the Lake: Tall Tales and Future Challenges 105

Afterword 111

Bibliography 117

Index 121

About the Author 123