Page 44 - July18LivingSCCLmagazine

Belmont, North Carolina
By Nick Suhr
Belmont is only a short drive from Sun City and from bustling uptown Charlotte. Although it has a population presently estimated at 10,700, it retains the character of a small town laid out on the peninsula formed by the Catawba River and the South Fork River where they flow into the northern end of Lake Wylie. The area had
railroad station. That mansion has been restored and is now Stowe Manor, which hosts weddings, family reunions
and corporate
gatherings. Chronicle
Mills was built by a
partnership of two brothers, Robert Lee Stowe, Sr. and Samuel Pinckney Stowe, with Abel Lineberger. By the mid-1930s, there were more than thirty fabric mills operating in Gaston County. Today, all of them are gone, either demolished or converted to other purposes. The Town of Belmont is fast becoming a popular bedroom community for the ever-expanding city of Charlotte.
Belmont Abbey College and Monestery
Founded in 1876 by the Benedictine Monks of Saint Vincent’s Archabbey of Pennsylvania, Belmont Abbey College is situated on a beautiful 700-acre campus, given to the monks by a Roman Catholic missionary named Jeremaiah O’Connell in 1872. The active Benedictine monastery is located adjacent to the Mary Help of Christians Basilica and within walking distance of the college campus and the business area of Belmont. The college boasts that its “Abbey Players” theatrical group, formed in 1883, is the oldest continuously active
theater company in the state of North Carolina, offering
Garibaldi Station
Richmond Air-Line Railway built Garibaldi Station along its right of way. It was named for John Garibaldi, a local man who built a water tower near the railroad line. When the town was incorporated by act of the North Carolina legislature in 1895, it became the Town of Belmont.
Early History and Development
The Stowe family name still appears all over Belmont.
In 1853, the Stowesville Cotton Mill was built by Jasper Stowe & Associates, the first of many cotton and textile businesses that would be established in and around Belmont. When Abram Stowe returned home after the Civil War ended, he built a magnificent mansion on Main Street and opened a general store near the Belmont
44 LIVING @ SCCL, July 2018
some settlement in colonial times, but the population really started growing after the Civil Wat. It was 1871 when the Atlanta and
Quaint small-town shops
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