Hooks-McLaughlin House
(ca. 1890)
Charles Rhyon McLaughlin, mayor of Matthews from 1929 to 1941, lived in the Hooks-McLaughlin House for nearly half a century.
501 West John Street, Matthews, NC 28105
Sidney J. Hooks (1862-1934) purchased the lot that contains the Hooks-McLaughlin House in 1884, three years before his marriage to Shelby W. Archibald (1868-1949). Having previously worked on his father’s farm in Union County, North Carolina, Hooks became a grocer and cotton merchant following his move to Matthews. He also served as the town’s postmaster. In 1894, he and Shelby moved to Dunn, North Carolina, with their four children.
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Charles Rhyon McLaughlin (1868-1952), a Charlotte native who lived in Matthews for almost his entire life, purchased the Hooks-McLaughlin House in 1900. Although apparently purchased as an investment property, Charles and his wife Mary Belle Grier McLaughlin moved into the house in 1907, where Charles continued to reside following Mary Belle’s 1912 death until his own death in 1952. A merchant and prominent citizen of Matthews, Charles served as the town’s mayor from 1929 until his health forced him to retire in 1941, a span of years during which the town of Matthews experienced significant growth.
The Hooks-McLaughlin House is unique in that it is one of only three extant Folk Victorian or Queen Anne style residences built in Matthews between 1890 and 1910, all of which are located on West John Street. The two other such residences are the Queen Anne style Nancy Reid House (1890) at 134 West John Street and the Folk Victorian McLaughlin-Bost House (ca. 1891) at 415 West John Street. Charles McLaughlin lived in the latter house before he moved to Charlotte to live for two years at the turn of the century. Most of the houses constructed in Matthews during that time period were instead Craftsman-style dwellings.