Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

It’s that time of year again where the snow blankets the town and winter festivities begin! This will be my first winter as a resident of the area and I am excited to experience all the holiday lights and snowy activities offered in Charlotte.

The season started off with a snowy Lighted Holiday Parade with a familiar face standing tall: Santa. It has become my morning routine to be greeted by Jolly Ol’ Saint Nicholas on my drive to the library. I’ve been told that he has stood vigilant each Christmas on the Courthouse Square for many, many years. After being told this, and being someone who loves looking at old photographs, I began to search the Michigan Room in hopes of finding some wintery scenes of Charlotte from the past. Luck would have it that I found this lovey image, published in a book about Charlotte, of our Santa!

If you were walking down main street in the early 1900s, you may have stopped outside the Pioneer Drug Company store for the Christmas tree lot. The company was established in 1857 by George V. Collins in the first brick store built in Charlotte. By 1905, the grandson assumed responsibility of the store and changed the name to A.B. Collins and Company. It’s hard to tell but that building may be still standing to this day! Finding this image intrigued me. I decided to find other places in Charlotte during the winter throughout the years. When speaking with my coworkers about winter activities here, they mentioned a sledding hill and occasionally an ice rink near the water tower. While I haven’t tried ice skating myself, it was a fun pastime for residents as seen at this community ice rink.

Before you knew the library as it is today, it was called the Charlotte Public Library and was housed in a different building! The building was a gift from Andrew Carnegie in 1903 (located at the corner of N Cochran and W Harris). Here you can see the library during a past winter. The old building still used today though not by the library. A florist, beauty salon and a bakery are calling the building home.

Did you know that in the past out on Packard Hwy there was an ice house? It was called A.K. Tower Ice House and Pond. Natural ice was harvested from the pond and packed in sawdust for storage in the ice shed. The ice was scored and cut with large saws then horses harnessed to a rope and pulley hauled the huge ice blocks in the shed

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With the winter months comes quite a bit of traveling. Whether by car, plane, train or public transportation people are always on the go. In 1919, the Charlotte “bus” was part of one of the first bus lines in the state. It transported passengers between Charlotte and Coldwater. No matter your mode of transport, don’t forget to get out there to enjoy the holiday lights and winter festivities!

By Sara Horn