Carolina Transfer and Storage Company Building
(ca. 1927)
The Carolina Transfer and Storage Company building helped launch West Morehead Street as a busy commercial and light industrial corridor.
1230 W Morehead St, Charlotte, NC 28208
Carolina Transfer and Storage Company was founded in 1922 by three brothers originally from Catawba County, North Carolina: Fabius Alexander (1877-1945), John Lantz (1886-1952), and William Dorus (1879-1946) Wilkinson. The family-owned and operated company ultimately employed four generations of the Wilkinson family. Originally located downtown, the company began construction of its new four-story warehouse building in 1926, making it one of the first commercial structures on West Morehead Street west of the Southern Railway tracks. The street quickly developed into a busy commercial and light industrial corridor. The Carolina Transfer and Storage Company building and the other West Morehead Street structures that followed reflected Charlotte’s growth in both population and economic activity in the 1920s, as well as the ensuing need for businesses of every variety to meet the demands of the new economy. Those increases provided a growing customer base for the transfer and storage industry in Charlotte. In 1920, there were seven such companies listed in the city directory under the heading “transfer.” By 1930, there were eighteen such companies listed.
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William Wilkinson served as the first president of Carolina Transfer and Storage Company until 1934. Prior to starting the company with his brothers, William served as president of the Carolina Realty Company and as a partner with the insurance firm of Wilkinson and Lee. William later moved to Columbia, South Carolina, and died there in 1946. John Wilkinson, who originally served as the company’s vice president, replaced brother William as head of the company and remained in that role until 1950. John’s prior work experience included a management role with the Cochran and Ross livery stable that also provided the same transfer, moving, packing, and storage services that later became the core of the Wilkinson brothers’ business. Active in business and civic affairs, John served as Charlotte City Councilman (1935-1941) and Mayor Pro Tem and in leadership roles with the American Trucking Association, the National Furniture Warehouse Association, Allied Van Lines, and the North Carolina Motor Carriers Association. Fabius also served as a vice president of Carolina Transfer and Storage until 1934, when he became the company’s treasurer. The children of the three brothers and other family members continued the business until the 1970s.
The West Morehead Street location of the Carolina Transfer and Storage Company building had the advantage of being close to the city and convenient to the newly opened Wilkinson Boulevard, North Carolina’s first state highway. The site also benefitted from a spur line of the Piedmont and Northern Interurban Railway, a light rail system between Charlotte and the textile mills of Gaston County, that allowed for easy handling of rail freight. The all-masonry fireproof building was constructed using the state-of-the-art “flat slab” method that employed concrete slab floors supported by distinctive mushroom columns to allow for a more open floor plan without sacrificing strength.