Tom Hanchett: From Independence to Myers Park: How John Nolen shaped Charlotte’s landscape

In 1905 a young student in the fledgling field of landscape architecture ducked out of his final exams at Harvard to take a train south to Charlotte. “First important landscape work” he wrote in his diary. That initial commission to design the city’s first public park, Independence Park, led John Nolen to create the Myers Park neighborhood — and nearly 400 other projects nationwide.

Historian Dr. Tom Hanchett came to Charlotte in 1981 to research Myers Park and other older neighborhoods for the Historic Landmarks Commission. He wrote the nomination of the neighborhood to the National Register of Historic Places and recently has produced an extensive history of Independence Park for Mecklenburg Park & Recreation. Recently retired from the Levine Museum of the New South, Tom is now Historian-in-Residence with the public library.