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Within the same week in 1873, a little village north of Charlotte called Craighead incorporated and renamed itself Huntersville. The village of Moore did the same, renaming itself Mooresville. Learn more about their histories and the futures.

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As Mooresville celebrates its 150th year, few families can say they’ve been in the North Carolina Piedmont longer than the Carrigans.

The first of this family of farmers came from Scotland and Ireland in the 1750s, “so we’re about as deeply ingrained in the Piedmont as much as anybody can be,” except for Native Americans, Doug Carrigan told an interviewer in 2019 for UNC Charlotte’s “The Queen’s Garden: Oral Histories of the Piedmont Foodshed” collection.

“We just farm,” Carrigan, now 70 and still tilling the soil at his Carrigan Farms on N.C. 150 East (Oakridge Farm Highway), said at the time. “We’re married to the land first. We live off the land, eat off it. It’s our only source of income. Some days we make 2 bucks an hour, sometimes $200.”

The farm also has a quarry where people swim by reservation and hold weddings and corporate events.

Doug Carrigan’s 21-year-old son, William Wade Carrigan, intends to keep the traditions of the farm going.

“I’m the fifth generation to live on this farm and work the dirt,” William Carrigan told The Charlotte Observer on the front porch of the home, as traffic whizzed close by on N.C. 150.

William Wade Carrigan graduated with honors from N.C. State lastMay with a bachelor’s in horticulture and a minor in entomology. His sister, Elizabeth, 22, helps on the farm during busy stretches but plans to be a nurse practitioner, he said. Their mom is Kelly Carrigan.

Their family bought the farm in 1902, and generations have lived ever since in the home that was built there in 1852.

The following is a Q&A with William Carrigan, lightly edited for space:

Q: Tell us about the history of your family.

A: “We came to America and the Piedmont before America was founded. Some of the first Carrigans came to America in the 1760s, and there are other sides of my family, the Linker side of the family, that came around that time, too.”

When his family bought the farm, “it was just kind of a subsistence farm,” he said. “They did everything to survive. They had pigs and cows and chickens and wheat and corn. They didn’t go to the grocery store, because they couldn’t go to the grocery store. So they had to do everything.

“But that’s how everyone lived back then. Everyone was a farmer, and that’s how they got by.

“Then my great-grandfather did a lot of cotton, as every other farm did in Iredell County. Cotton was a big cash crop for them. That was around the 1930s.

“And then my grandfather got into the dairy business. There were a lot of dairies around Iredell County at that time. Now there’s not as many dairies.

“My dad got a degree in horticulture from N.C. State, and then he decided he wanted to sell the cows. And so now he started doing pick-your-own agritourism horticulture, which is still what we’re doing. I’m continuing on the same thing.

“And so that’s the evolution of the farm through the times. ... We’re always kind of changing, doing something.”

Q: What is a typical day for you on the farm?

A: “Every day is different. This time of the year, in winter, there’s not a whole lot going on. Some pruning, a lot of apple pruning. But there’s always little farm tasks, fixing this, building that. Just today, I was unloading a trailer for a greenhouse, we’re going to be putting up a new greenhouse.

At the end of February, Carrigan had 2,000 apple trees delivered. ”We’re going to plant a new apple orchard. So there’s always things to keep you busy.”

Q: What’s on the farm?

A: “We mainly do pick-your-own apples, strawberries and pumpkins. We have a small garden for us to eat off. And sometimes, whenever we do events at the quarry, we’ll use some of the food from the garden to feed those people. So we do some farm-to-table stuff like that at the quarry whenever you eat there.”

Q: Your family has been in the Piedmont so long. Do you ever think about that?

A: “I do like to think about that sometimes. What went on right here 150 years ago, because this house was here before 150 years. My family probably sat on this same porch and talked about whatever.”

Q: What do you think they talked about?

A: “I don’t know, current politics, or, ‘we’ve got to plow the field today.’ Could be anything. But that’s cool to think about, the history.”

Q: What do you think of the changes in Mooresville? People are coming from everywhere.

A: “It’s getting busy, yeah. Highway 150 right here, I don’t know if you can hear the cars zooming by, but when this house was built, that highway wasn’t there. It was just nothing, it was empty. It’s getting busier, lot more people, but a lot more jobs, too, so that’s good. Business, too. They’re customers, so that’s good.”

Q: What do visitors to the farm like best?

A: “People aren’t just coming to pick a fruit or to eat a fruit. They’re coming for an experience. They want to come out and pick the strawberries and have fun with their family. Or take a hay ride and pick a pumpkin and make that memory.”

Q: Where do customers come from?

A: “We get customers from everywhere. A lot of people from Charlotte, some from Greensboro, Winston-Salem. Usually an hour away. But when my dad first started doing pick-your-own farming, it was mainly all roadside. People would just see the farm and say, ‘Ooh, I want to pick some apples, I want to pick some strawberries. And now it’s all a destination. People put it in their GPS and they come specifically for that.”

Q: Can you tell us about that old well beside the house?

A: “It’s a little decrepit now, but there’s some history behind that well. It was called Deep Well. If you look at old maps of Iredell County, before Mooresville was created, it didn’t say Mooresville. It said Deep Well. And that was the well.

That well was dug before this house was built. When the original Hargrave family started living here, before the Carrigans bought the land, they needed a clean source of water. So the first thing they needed to do whenever they settled was to a dig a well. And that’s the well.

Q: Is the well still used?

A: “No. But it still works. You could throw a bucket down there and get clean water out of it. You could drink it, because it seeps through the soil. It’s clean. It’s filtered. It’s like well water, it’s the same thing. If we ever lost power, yeah, you could throw a bucket down there and drink out of it.

“My granddaddy said that he used to lower a watermelon down in the bucket because it’s cold down there. And then he would chill the watermelon and pull it out on a hot summer day and eat the watermelon.”

Q: A lot of people in their early 20s say they want to see the world, they don’t want to return to their house. What do you think about that?

A: “For me, this is home. I really wouldn’t want to live anywhere else than Iredell County, North Carolina. My family’s been here for so long, got deep roots, literally. We’re farmers.”

Q. Farming is one of the toughest jobs in the world. How do you look at it?

A: “Mother Nature’s your boss. Spring freezes are a big problem for us. You could lose a whole crop in one night. It’s a gamble, like anything. But that’s what my family’s been doing. We live off the land.”

Q: Your family knows the Piedmont soil better than anyone. Why did you bother going to college?

A: “There’s a lot that college teaches you that you can’t just learn by kicking the dirt around. There’s a lot of science involved in farming, too.”

Q: We all hear reports that some children in America don’t know where fruits and vegetables come from. Have you heard that when you give school groups tours of your farm?

A: “A lot of kids have never seen a real apple tree. They don’t know that apple comes from a tree. Kids that have never seen a corn plant before. We had some little kids come out, I think in second grade. I was growing some sweet corn and offered them a bite. Raw sweet corn is delicious. ‘This is the best corn I’ve ever had,’ they said. They didn’t know that corn grew on a stalk. They ate sweet corn right in the field and thought it was the best thing ever.”

Q: How do you see the future of Carrigan Farms?

A: “Hopefully in 50 years, I’ll still be farming. Maybe it’ll change and evolve into something else. Maybe it won’t be agtourism anymore, could be wholesale, whatever. It’s hard to tell the future. But I’d like to keep farming. Keep it in the family. Maybe I’ll have a sixth generation.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2023, 6:00 AM.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS STORY WAS UPDATED AFTER THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ON SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 2023, CONFIRMED THAT AN EF-0 TORNADO FORMED ON LAKE NORMAN IN SOUTHERN IREDELL COUNTY ON SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2023.

An 80-mph tornado formed over Lake Norman Saturday morning, crossed Interstate 77 and narrowly missed Mooresville Middle School as it snapped trees along a nearly 8-mile path, according to the National Weather Service.

The EF-0 tornado emerged at 7:27 a.m. in a line of severe thunderstorms with hail that smacked Gaston, Lincoln, northern Mecklenburg and southern Iredell counties, meteorologists in the NWS office in Greer, South Carolina, told The Charlotte Observer.

EF-0 is the weakest of six tornado classifications on NOAA’s Enhanced Fujita Scale for tornado intensity and damage. NOAA is short for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

After forming 3 miles northwest of Davidson in southern Iredell County, the tornado barreled onshore at the Davidson College lake campus, hurled picnic tables into the lake and downed large trees, an NWS damage survey team found Sunday.

“Numerous spots along the shore between the Lake Campus and Interstate 77 saw snapped tree trunks or large branches,” according to a report by the team. “One large poplar tree was uprooted and damaged other large trees as it fell.”

A fence and a well head also were damaged.

The tornado crossed I-77 at about 7:30 a.m. and leveled numerous large, healthy tree branches between Langtree Road and Blackwelder Farm Drive, according to the report.,

Near Mooresville Middle School, a fence collapsed and a tree was uprooted, NWS meteorologists said. The team found uprooted trees between Linwood Road and Teeter Road and determined that the tornado dissipated at 7:39 a.m. in Rowan County.

The tornado traveled 7.79 miles and was 30 yards wide, according to the NWS report.

No injuries were reported from the storms.

On Saturday, the NWS received a report of trees felled on Newbury Drive, off Faith Road, NWS meteorologist Jake Wimberley told the Observer.

The NWS urged anyone who saw tornadic-like weather to fill out an online .

Another emerged just before 1:30 p.m. Saturday. The NWS first warned of hail and 40-mph winds in Shelby and Boiling Springs in Cleveland County and Cherryville in Gaston County.

An hour later, and 40-mph winds were possible in Cornelius, Mooresville and Gastonia, NWS forecasters said. Winds and showers returned to Mooresville just before 3 p.m., after a day of sunshine. Storms were expected until 3:15 p.m., according to the NWS.

The National Weather Service for the Lake Norman area Saturday morning, including the towns of Davidson, Cornelius and Mooresville.

A tornado warning means and people should seek shelter in a sturdy structure.

Just after 7:30 a.m., leveled a structure in the 200 block of Preston Road in Mooresville, WBTV reported.

SEVERE WEATHER ADVISORY: Severe weather is approaching. Please follow local news for updates. Secure items outside, bring pets inside, charge cell phones and use only battery powered flash lights. Stay away from windows during heavy winds.

— Charlotte Fire Dept (@CharlotteFD)

Duke Energy reported in the Charlotte area from the storms, with just 213 customers in Mecklenburg County without electricity at 11:30 a.m. Saturday.

At least at Charlotte Douglas International Airport by 5:30 p.m. Saturday, according to tracking site FlightAware.com.

At 8:45 a.m., the FAA at the airport, WSOC reported.

All Sunday and Monday, according to the NWS Charlotte forecast at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Tornado Warning including Mooresville NC, Cornelius NC and Davidson NC until 8:00 AM EDT

— NWS GSP (@NWSGSP)

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — A Mooresville reverend who brought the idea of filming a documentary highlighting the town’s Black history to the town feels officials did not include him in the storytelling process.

The Rev. Curtis Johnson remembers everything and everyone from his time as a young boy growing up in Mooresville.

What You Need To Know

He lived in what he said at the time was a Black community known as the West End.

“I knew pretty much where everybody lived,” he said.

He can still list all the names of families who lived in the community.

“It was just a thriving little community,” he said.

“You had businesses. We had the Dunbar school down there. We had churches,” he said.

He now is president of the South Iredell NAACP. For a long time, it’s been his mission to document the stories of the Black community in Mooresville, both good and bad. He wanted to document the truth.

His chance came as the town planned its 150th anniversary celebration. He asked, how was Black history being included?

“The librarian told me that Mooresville didn’t have any Black history, that they would start from 2022 with our history, and I said, ‘Oh no, no, we got history here in Mooresville,’” Johnson said.“The librarian told me that Mooresville didn’t have any Black history, that they would start from 2022 with our history, and I said, ‘Oh no, no, we got history here in Mooresville,’” Johnson said. So, he decided to go out and get it.

“So Rev. Gabriel [the Rev. Gavin Gabriel] and myself, we had already talked about doing, shooting a documentary but that just kind of speeded things up,” said Johnson.

Johnson first approached the Mooresville Public Library about the idea for a documentary last summer. The History Town Committee endorsed the idea, according to a town document.

The library through the town contracted with ICTV for that documentary, according to library director Marian Lytle, who said she sees the need to strengthen the town's Black history.

At first, Johnson said he was excited — but that quickly changed. He feels the town and library didn’t include him, and instead, pushed him out.

“They pushed us completely out of the way,” Johnson said. “To me, that is dangerous because you can’t tell… God gives a vision to those he wants to carry them out. Not somebody that just wants to reach in because this is why we are having the issues we’re having now, because they overstepped their bounds of what God wanted to do.”

“I started to seeing other thing start to happen,” Johnson added.

“First said they didn’t have no Black history and then when we got started with this, then started, interferences start to, started to see little things start to happen,” he said. “I felt like they was trying to insert something that they wanted in there and take out what we had worked hard to get. And I told them that I wasn’t going to stand by and see that happen because the NAACP doesn’t operate like that.”

The documentary, titled “Black Mooresville: The Untold Story,” will premiere Saturday, Feb. 11, at the Charles Mack Citizen Center in downtown Mooresville.

Town officials have called the documentary a "very important local history project" but acknowledge that there was so much material that it had to be "streamlined" for a 60-minute show.

Johnson says he’s not excited ahead of the premiere.

“And for it to end up the way it’s ended up, I am disappointed,” he said. “I am not as excited as I was.”

“They’re looking forward to seeing this,” Johnson said, referring to the community. “They’re not looking forward to seeing something that’s been watered down.”

Thirty people were interviewed for the documentary. At one point, Johnson says he found out there was a possibility that they couldn’t include everyone in the final cut.

“We told the people that they would be in the documentary, we told them that they may, not going to post everything that they say, but just clips and things of this nature, they would be in the documentary,” Johnson said. “Because of the way that they was trained years ago, they might just hold it in and it could cause them to perish, holding this in when they trusted us to tell them the truth.”

Johnson said he had been in contact with Eddie Dingler, Ward 1 commissioner for Mooresville, to air his concerns, to which he said Dingler immediately responded.

“The Black Mooresville documentary is a very important local history project that began with a history committee team passionate about our community. At the committee’s recommendation, ICTV was contracted by the Town to film, edit, and otherwise produce the documentary. Thirty individuals were interviewed by ICTV as part of the documentary and more than thirty hours of content was captured. Due to the abundance of material, it was necessary to streamline the content to create a cohesive 60-minute documentary,” Dingler said.

“The Town understands concerns that all voices will not be featured in the 60-minute documentary due to time restrictions," Dingler said.“The Town understands concerns that all voices will not be featured in the 60-minute documentary due to time restrictions," Dingler said. "To ensure the interviews, stories, and histories are preserved and shared with the community, all the interviews in their entirety will be available on the Mooresville Public Library Local History and Archive Oral History website. They will be free to access anytime, anywhere, and they are copywrite free, so they can be downloaded and used in future documentaries or programs. Mooresville Public Library will also provide free digital copies of their interviews to the participants if they so wish,” Dingler added.

Johnson says that he didn’t get to see a final cut in advance and that worried him, and now he’s afraid the full story of Black Mooresville won’t be told.

“We gathered a lot of information from those people, and I cherish that and we knew how we wanted to tell the story of Mooresville to see if we could see, how much change could we see from back then till now.”

Lytle, the library director, said she wasn't aware of an expectation that Johnson would be involved in the final editing process.

Among Johnson's concerns, he feels Black history wasn’t properly recognized for the town’s 150th celebration.

“It started in January and it started with the fireworks in January and then it left the fireworks and went straight to March,” he said. “Where their theme was, and they changed it now to Mooresville Day, but the theme was ‘party like it’s 1873.’”

“They had to go change it because in 1873, what was it like for us?” Johnson said.“They had to go change it because in 1873, what was it like for us?” Johnson said.

The slogan referring to 1873 is not on the 150-year celebration website, but it can be found in other local publications.

In response to questions about the slogan, the town issued a statement, which reads in part:

“The Town of Mooresville’s 150th anniversary official birthday celebration is Mooresville Day and will be held on March 4, 2023, 12-4 p.m. in downtown Mooresville. This is the second of our seven 'signature events' for the anniversary year.”

The town said more information can be found at the website mooresvillenc150.com.

Lytle said she learned only recently about Johnson's concerns.

“In September of 2022, Reverend Johnson suggested that the Library engage with Mr. Shawn Eckles of ICTV to record and produce a 60 minute documentary of local older residents as part of the 150th Birthday Celebration for Mooresville. The Library through the Town contracted with ICTV for that documentary," Lytle said. "Until recently, I was unaware of Reverend Johnson’s expectation that he or the volunteers would participate in the final editing process. The contract between ICTV and the Town of Mooresville does not address that expectation. At this point final edits are still being made, and no one has seen the final product."

The contract with ICTV states: “Our overall goal is to produce a 60 minute documentary that will allow watchers to hear and see African American residents from Mooresville. Residents will recall stories of the historically black schools in Mooresville, churches, employment and stories of racial situation[s] that may not have received media attention. WE WILL ALLOW THE RESIDENTS TO SPEAK AS FREELY AS THEY CHOOSE.”

Lytle also noted interviews with all 30 people wil be accessible.

“All of the interviews in their entirety will be available on the Mooresville Public Library Local History and Archive Oral History web site. They will be free to access anytime, anywhere,” Lytle said. “They are Copywrite free so they can be downloaded and used in future documentaries or programs. The Library will provide free digital copies of their interviews to the participants if they so wish.

She said there was not an agreement on interviewing 30 people in the contract with ICTV.

“No, the original contract specified 24,” Lytle said. “Mr. Eckles expanded that number as more people came to their attention.”

Lytle, responding to Johnson's assertion that there was no Mooresville Black history, said the historical record needs to be further developed.

“Staff of Mooresville Public Library are not aware of any book focus solely on the black history of Mooresville or it would be in our collection. Our staff know that our collection of local black history archives needs to be strengthened. We have oral history interviews and photographs that have been online and in the collection since the 2008 but we need more. This project provides a rich treasure of first person narrative and primary documents that will begin to fill in that gap,” Lytle said.

In a split vote Monday night, Mooresville commissioners approved a rezoning that will allow an Alabama developer to build a massive waterfront development.

Birmingham-based LIV Development’s plans include 353 multifamily units, 136 townhomes, 90 duplexes, a Lake Norman waterfront restaurant and a public multi-use shoreline greenway along Transco Road in southern Iredell County.

The greenway in the 96.8-acre community will offer rare public access to Lake Norman through a shoreline greenway, Estes McLemore of LIV Development said in the rezoning application.

“Currently, residents of Mooresville have a very small number of public accesses to the water,” McLemore wrote. “This development will provide a rare opportunity not only for the residents that live there, but for the entire community to enjoy each other’s company in a beautiful setting.”

“Most importantly,” developers said, the project will provide a major public road extension through the entire site, according to the request.

The 0.57-mile road will extend Langtree Campus Drive to the future Mooresville East-West Connector road, further opening the area to development, the developers said.

Town commissioners approved the rezoning by a 4-3 vote, with Mayor Miles Atkins casting the deciding vote. The mayor only votes in cases of a tie among the town board of commissioners. Commissioners Bobby Compton, Thurman Houston and Tommy DeWeese voted in favor of the rezoning.

“It’s a solid project, a tremendous community benefit,” Atkins said.

Commissioners Lisa Qualls, Eddie Dingler and Gary West voted against the rezoning.

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Qualls, the board’s mayor pro tem, said the project proposes no employment opportunities other than the minimum 3,000-square-foot waterfront restaurant.

Mooresville had long eyed the area as an employment center.

“The site should be held for industrial/commercial uses,” Qualls said. “We worked for years to keep this as a jobs-focused area.”

“We have a big ‘F’ problem,” Qualls added, referring to funding and focus.

She said that includes broken funding promises from the North Carolina Department of Transportation when it comes to Mooresville roads.

Funding also is a concern with the Iredell-Statesville Schools, including where the system is going to get the money to build a needed high school in southern Iredell County, Qualls said.

“F’ also stands for “focus,” she said, meaning a lack of focus on the part of drivers causing wrecks and other issues.

Dingler cited over-development concerns.

“What are we going to do with 579 more cars on our roads without any infrastructure?” he asked.

Residents of nearby Lake Davidson in Mecklenburg County also have denounced the project in recent months, citing over-development and environmental concerns.

Speaking on behalf of LIV Development Monday night, consultant Cindy Reid said the construction of homes would not begin until October at the earliest, and certificates of occupancy for the first 50 units aren’t expected until June 2025. The restaurant, greenway and 275 more homes would be completed in July 2026, she told the commissioners.

That times well with the East-West Connector, she said.

The developer, meanwhile, tried to allay traffic concerns in recent months by agreeing to link a proposed road from the development to the planned Mooresville East-West Connector. A federal grant is helping fund the connector.

Monday night, Reid said 80% of traffic generated by the new community would use nearby Interstate 77, and only 20% of drivers would use N.C. 115.

In January, commissioners continued a public hearing on the developer’s rezoning request to learn more about funding and a timetable for the East-West Connector.

Then, Qualls said, “NCDOT is failing us” in expanding overburdened state roads in the town. “And we’re stuck holding the bag.”

The construction timetable is now more definite, town officials said. Norfolk Southern also OKed the route crossing its tracks, officials said.

Work on the four-lane East-West Connector is expected to begin in June, The Charlotte Observer recently reported. Town officials first proposed the connector decades ago for drivers to escape backups when traveling east-west across Mooresville.

Construction bids are due Tuesday for Phase 1 of the connector, Mooresville Public Services Director Jonathan Young has told the Observer. Phase 1 will stretch from Langtree Road to N.C. 115 and include a realigned Transco Road and a new rail crossing at N.C. 115. Construction will take about two years, officials said.

Phase 1 construction will cost just under $22 million, partly funded by a 2019 U.S. Department of Transportation BUILD Grant, Young said. Including design and right-of-way, the overall project could roughly turn out to cost around $25 million to $27 million, he said.

A future second and final phase of the project will connect Highway 115 with Shearers Road at the intersection of Shearers Road and Rocky River Road, and is anticipated to cost around $50 million, Young said.

The new Transco Road community will consist of two “villages,” with more dense buildings in the north village, the developers said.

The 96.8-acre site is bounded to the south and east by Lake Norman and by Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corp. to the west, Danny Wilson, Mooresville planning and community development director, said in a memorandum to the commissioners.

Mooresville also has budgeted the money to build fire station 7, which will serve areas including the new development, town officials said. Lowe’s Cos. Inc. agreed to donate land for the station, officials said.

This story was originally published April 3, 2023, 9:23 PM.

A parent sent WCNC Charlotte a voicemail, purported to be from the school's assistant principal, condemning the "unacceptable act of discrimination."

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MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Editor's note: This story discusses a sensitive matter that is still developing. Reader discretion is advised.

An investigation is underway after photos started circulating on social media showing someone on the Lake Norman High School campus wearing graduation robes and a white pointed hood, similar to what a member of the Ku Klux Klan would wear.

Multiple viewers sent WCNC Charlotte copies of the photos. In one of the pictures, the person is making a gesture similar to a Nazi salute.

Magnolia Gray, who has a relative at the school, said she received the photos Friday and was shocked.

"I'm horrified," Gray said. "I'm floored. I'm shocked. It is the most horrifying thing in the world."

She said the person in the pictures, who her relative told her is a student, needs to learn from this incident.

"I would like him to sit down and talk to other people, and maybe get a different idea of the world," Gray said.

A parent also forwarded WCNC Charlotte a voicemail from Lake Norman High School, which addressed the incident and shared that an investigation was underway.

For the latest breaking news, weather and traffic alerts, download the WCNC Charlotte mobile app.

The message is purportedly from the school's assistant principal and states, in part, "Lake Norman High School and the Iredell-Statesville Schools do not condone this unacceptable act of discrimination. If anyone has information regarding this photo, please reach out to the school administration. Racial harassment, discrimination, hate speech, or degradation of any kind will not be tolerated and does not represent our high school or our school district. Acts such as this are a disgrace to our community, and those involved will be disciplined to the fullest extent."

Credit: WCNC

You can stream WCNC Charlotte on Roku and Amazon Fire TV, just download the free app.

WCNC Charlotte has reached out to Iredell-Statesville Schools for more information about the incident.

This is a developing story and this article will be updated as more information comes in.