On this day in 1949: Mayor Herbert Baxter throws the switch on a machine that ostensibly begins pumping fluoride into Charlotte’s water supply. In reality, the media event is a ruse designed to flush out anti-fluoridation hysteria. Indeed, complaints quickly begin pouring in about hair falling out and pet fish dying.
A month later the city will reveal the truth, and Charlotte really does become the first city in the South and the 14th in the nation to fluoridate.