For Hotel Charlotte, a final moment of boom times

On this day in 1988: Taping a TV special, magician David Copperfield, handcuffed and locked in a safe, escapes from the old Hotel Charlotte moments before its implosion.

The 12-story hotel has been closed since 1973, but in its heyday it was Charlotte’s finest. Among its guests: Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon; Elvis Presley; Huey Long; Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth. Bill Monroe and Roy Acuff recorded in its 10th-floor studios, and Tommy Dorsey, Guy Lombardo and Kay Kyser performed in its ballroom.

 

Edenton Celebrates 300 Years

Bayard Wootten postcard of courthouse in Edenton
Edenton kicks off its anniversary celebrations today at noon with the ringing of the Chowan County Courthouse bells 300 times. The town dates its beginning to the passage of an act in the colonial Assembly calling for “building a Court house to hold the Assembly in, at the fork of Queen Ann’s Creek commonly called Matchacamak Creek in Chowan precinct.” The settlement around that courthouse became known as Edenton in 1722, when the Assembly named it in honor of Charles Eden, the colony’s royal governor, who had died earlier that year.