Just outside Uptown, across the street from the Panthers’ “space-age practice bubble” on Cedar Street, the Charlotte Rescue Mission is a beautiful reminder of Charlotte’s past, but it’s an incredibly active part of our present. ⁣
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From its residential recovery programs that help people struggling with the disease of addiction achieve long-term sobriety to Community Matters Cafe, the Charlotte Rescue Mission provides a place for Charlotte to gather while providing career training that gives program-members a second chance at life and work.⁣ That’s the building’s present … but what about its past?

Prior to becoming home to Charlotte Rescue Mission’s Rebound Program in the 1990s and their Community Matters Cafe in 2019, these buildings were known as the Southern Spindle & Flyer Company Building and the Standard Oil Company Complex respectively.

With the addition of railroads in 1852, Charlotte’s growing textile industry was prepared to boom. By 1910, Charlotte was the heart of a bustling textile industry region in the southeast. These two buildings being built in the 1910s and 1920s were a direct result of companies moving to the Queen City to capitalize on the city’s growing economy.

Charlotte’s past is often hard to find in our city’s architecture so we love to see when organizations like Charlotte Rescue Mission choose to “rescue” these spaces rather than tear down and build anew.