Charlotte, North Carolina
Although people may not realize it, Charlotte has plenty of “historic gems hidden around the city,” said Kristen Moore, communications manager for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority and Visit Charlotte.
Liberty Walk is a free, self-guided, public walking tour about the Revolutionary War, and Friends of the Fourth Ward provide free walking tour guides of the “very beautiful” district’s neighborhood parks, commercial buildings and elaborate historic homes, she said. At the Historic Rosedale Plantation and the Latta Plantation, visitors will find re-enactors in period costumes.
Moore’s favorite place to recommend is the Levine Museum of the New South, which tells the history of the South after the Civil War. One of the museum’s permanent exhibits, “Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers,” recounts how Charlotte rebuilt after the war.
“My recommendation is to go there first and get a great foundation, learn the history of how Charlotte developed, and then go out and see it,” she said.
To learn about the city’s history in finance — Charlotte is the second-largest banking hub outside of New York City — visitors should check out the Wells Fargo History Museum, the Mint Museum and Reed Gold Mine, which is open for tours and gold panning.
Charlotte also has a host of tour companies that provide a mix of ways to experience the city and that each incorporate Charlotte’s history in a different way. Charlotte NC Tours, C-Charlotte Tours and Charlotte Crown Guides are just a few of the city’s options available for tours.
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington has a virtual army of local historians and experts available as step-on guides for group tours, and each specializes in a different segment of history. Bob Jenkins of Wilmington Adventure Tour Co. has been doing tours for nearly 30 years, and “no two tours are ever the same,” said Connie Nelson, communications and public relations director for Wilmington and Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau. American Heritage Tours offers African-American historical tours, Bernhard Thuersam’s Tour Confederate Wilmington focuses on Civil War history, Wilbur Jones does World War II tours, and Robin Triplett’s Trips with Triplett and Janet Seapker’s Tours by Degrees cover general Wilmington history.
The Wilmington Trolley Co. can take about 30 passengers for a 45-minute narrated tour of the downtown commercial district, and Springbrook Farms’ Horsedrawn Carriage Tours can take about 40 people on its two horse-drawn trolleys.
Downtown is a beautiful historic area and is similar in feel to Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, Nelson said. During one of Lori Rose’s Tour Old Wilmington walking tours, Rose dresses in period Victorian costume and leads groups through downtown’s history and architecture, taking them to sites such as the Cotton Exchange, a complex of eight restored industrial buildings that today house 30 boutiques and restaurants.
Several historic Wilmington homes are open for tours, among them the Burgwin-Wright House and Gardens, the antebellum Bellamy Mansion Museum and the Victorian-era Latimer House, and each has its own story to tell. The Burgwin-Wright House served as British Gen. Cornwallis’ headquarters for a short time in April 1781.
Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia is home to the Woodrow Wilson Family Home, the boyhood home of America’s 28th president. Wilson’s parents built it in 1871 but only lived there for three years before moving the family to Wilmington.
The house operated as a historic home museum for more than 70 years, but officials closed it in 2005 because of structural issues. It remained closed for nearly a decade, reopening in February 2014 with a new foundation, a new look and a new mission: to recount the history of Columbia’s reconstruction. Rather than being set up as a period home, it is now arranged as a museum with exhibits that tell the history of Columbia’s reconstruction after the Civil War.
“We’re telling the story of the Wilson family when they lived here, the story of reconstruction in Columbia and the story of the preservation of the building,” said Carrie Phillips, director of marketing and communications for Historic Columbia.
