Statesville City Zoning Code

The Town of Statesville was created by legislative enactment in a bill which passed its final reading in the North Carolina General Assembly, December 19, 1789, just about a month after the constitutional convention voted to take North Carolina into the newly formed United States. It was created as a county seat for Iredell County, formed from western Rowan County the year before.

The site, selected by a committee named for the purpose in the bill creating the county in 1788, was approximately at the center of Iredell, on land adjoining the Fourth Creek Presbyterian Church. In the bill which created the town, the site selection committee was named as a governing body of commissioners "for building and carrying on the said town" on fifty (50) acres of land bought from Fergus Sloan.

The name of Statesville was included in the original bill, but why that name was chosen can only be guessed. Nearly a century later, as the centennial celebration was approaching, three (3) guesses were made, but none of them was confirmed. One (1) guess was that it lay near the center of the State before the western portion was ceded to the Federal Government to form Tennessee. Another was that it lay near a State road that passed somewhere nearby. A third guess was that, since the name was actually picked during the year 1789, when North Carolina had refused to join the United States and was, along with Rhode Island, a free and independent State, the name of Statesville has something of a states' rights meaning.

A hastily built log courthouse, erected on a knoll above Fourth Creek Church, was opened in time for the June Session of the County Court in 1790, and in August lots were sold on Broad and Center Streets, with the courthouse at their intersection, and on Meeting, Front and Tradd Streets.

The village around the courthouse grew slowly, with a population of only two hundred fifteen (215) in 1850, some fifty (50) years after its founding. There was progress of a kind, however. Roads were shifted to pass the county seat, and it became a stopping place for stagecoaches, with a few taverns to take care of the travelers. In 1801 the first post office was established. In 1816 a school for boys was established and flourished for a while, and in the late 1820's a school for girls was begun. In 1820 a new brick courthouse on the square took the place of the old log one.

The Legislature of 1800 passed a law for continuing a town government by the election of three (3) commissioners every three (3) years, commissioners who had the power to make rules and regulations and levy taxes. Occasional references are found to such commissioners during the next half century, but their records have been lost.

In 1847 the form of government was changed, and the town was incorporated. Provision was made for a town magistrate and four (4) commissioners to be elected every two (2) years. Arthur M. Walker was appointed town magistrate, and with him a council of commissioners heavily laden with innkeepers. When records began to make their actions clear in 1855, the makeup of the council had changed but little from those appointed in the original incorporation.

The first ten (10) years of the new form of government were years of crisis for the village. An almost successful attempt was made in 1852 to divide the county in the center, with two (2) new county seats, thus dealing a death blow to Statesville by making it unnecessary. Late in 1854 the two (2) blocks to the west of the square and the courthouse were burned to the ground. The county records were saved, but those of the town were likely burned, since extant proceedings of the commissioners began with the following May. A violent windstorm then damaged the college which was built at the end of West Broad Street as a school for girls.

Finally the village aroused itself from such disasters, staved off the county division, completed the college building and built a new courthouse at the present site and other brick buildings to take the place of those burned. More important, the leaders saw to it that the Western North Carolina Railroad from Salisbury came by the town, reaching Statesville October 1, 1858. Another railroad, began as the Atlantic, Tennessee and Ohio from Charlotte in 1859, was completed early during the Civil War and then rebuilt during Reconstruction days.

As the railroads reached the town, the complexion of the government began to change. Chief magistrates Otho Gillispie and Robert Simonton, who followed Walker, were still tavern keepers, but their main interest was in railroads. A change in the charter was necessary to allow Statesville to vote bonds for finishing the railroad from Charlotte. The change was made in 1861, and the bonds were voted, giving the town its first bonded debt, a debt that was to plague it until the turn of the century.

The junction of the two (2) railroads changed the courthouse village into a trading center for several counties. It became a port of entry for that section of North Carolina all the way to the Tennessee and Virginia border and established an economic and political overlordship in that territory. Its lawyers became the representatives to Congress, and its merchants exchanged goods shipped in for all kind of produce, especially for cotton, tobacco, herbs and liquor. In the 1880's tobacco manufacturing was tried, and the growing town boasted it was the wholesale liquor capital of the world.

After the Civil War, Col. S. A. Sharpe was elected town magistrate, but soon his title was changed to mayor, with no other evident change in the form of city government until 1885. Then the town was divided in four (4) wards by the intersection of Broad and Center Streets, and two (2) aldermen were elected from each ward, with a mayor elected independently by the whole town. Usually the aldermen were from the merchant group and represented their viewpoint.

In the late 1880's, as the railroads began to move closer to the mountains, to Taylorsville and North Wilkesboro, the Statesville merchants began to make a conscious attempt to make up for the loss of their trading territory by turning to industry. In the early 1890's they built a cotton mill and, after 1900, two (2) more. By 1900 they were preaching diversification of industry and had established roller mills and furniture factories, while some heavy metal industry was growing up.

The growing city, with a population of more than two thousand (2,000) in 1890 and three thousand (3,000) in 1900, voted bonds to build an electric power station just before 1890 and then voted taxes for a graded school just after 1890. Before 1900 a third bond issue had been voted to build a water and sewer system. In 1907, soon after the first hydroelectric power dams were built along the Catawba River, the city council signed a contract with the Southern Power Company for electric power, thus giving industry another boost and providing a source of income for the government.

In the meantime the wholesale liquor industry was destroyed by a vote for local option prohibition in 1903, and Winston-Salem and Durham were forging ahead in the tobacco industry so much that Statesville was forced to drop out of competition. As the herb business gradually died out, the trading Statesville of the last half of the nineteenth century disappeared and a city of diversified industry took its place.

Even before the Civil War the corporation limits had been enlarged, and since then they have been extended time after time. The original fifty (50) acres has been extended to cover 5,910.27 acres, as of July 1, 1959. Since 1900, each census has shown a growth in population with the city passing the ten thousand (10,000) mark by 1930 and reaching nearly seventeen thousand (17,000) by the census of 1950.

In the late 1920's there began a change in civic policy in connection with industry. The early industries were the work of local men, often the merchants, and they furnished the capital. Some foreign capital was brought in, but it was at a minimum. The 1920's, though, began to see a conscious effort to attract outside capital and to get outside industry to move to Statesville. Most important before World War II was the establishment of the Carnation Company in 1938, important because it did so much to change the economy of Iredell County from row crops to dairying. Since World War II the policy of attracting outside industry has become more intense, and the tendency toward diversification of industry, so evident about 1900, has become the keynote of the new policy.

In organization the city government did not make much change from 1885 until after the Legislature of 1947, but its compositions reflected the change from trading to industry and then to the bringing in of outside industry. Voting for aldermen was changed from a ward basis to a citywide basis, and staggered terms for the eight (8) aldermen, with half of them elected every two (2) years, was tried.

In 1947 a civil service commission was set up, a recreation commission created and a zoning ordinance adopted. At the same time, provision was made for an election in 1948 for the approval of a city manager form of government and the reduction of the number of aldermen from two (2) in a ward to one (1) in each ward. Both amendments carried, and in 1949, C. L. Lineback was appointed first city manager. In 1949, too, a city court, with I. T. Avery as judge, was set up to take the magisterial duties off the mayor. In 1953 the board of aldermen was again increased by increasing the number of wards from four (4) to six (6) with the election of one (1) alderman from each ward.

On May 29, 1959, the General Assembly ratified a bill amending the city charter in various respects. The board of aldermen was amended to read city council and the number of wards remained the same, with the election of one (1) councilman from each ward by the qualified voters of the entire city. The mayor continues to be elected at large and by the qualified voters of the entire city.

The city acknowledges with grateful appreciation the preparation of this historical information by Mr. Homer Keever.

An Act for Establishing a Town on the Lands of Fergus Sloan, in Iredell County, and to Amend an Act for the Division of Rowan County.

(Private Laws of 1789, Chapter 30.)

Whereas it hath been represented to this General Assembly, that the lands of Fergus Sloan, agreed and fixed on by the commissioners appointed by the above recited act for the division of Rowan County, for the fixing on a place, and building a courthouse, prison and stocks in the said county of Iredell, is a pleasant and healthy situation, and the said Fergus Sloan having signified his consent to have fifty (50) acres of land, fixed on by the commissioners as aforesaid, laid off for a town; and at the request and desire of the inhabitants of the county of Iredell aforesaid, by the name of Statesville.

I. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that the said fifty (50) acres shall be laid off in half-acre lots and streets accordingly; and the same are hereby constituted and established a town by the name of Statesville.

II. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that George Davidson, Jeremiah Nelson, Joseph Sharp, John Nesbit and Christopher Huston, be and everyone of them be constituted commissioners and trustees, for designing, building and carrying on the said town; and they shall stand seized of an indefeasible estate in fee-simple in the said fifty (50) acres of land aforesaid, to and for the uses, intents and purposes hereby declared; and the said commissioners, or any three (3) of them, shall have full power and authority to meet as often as they shall think proper, to lay off said town as they shall think most convenient; and the said commissioners shall make and execute deeds in fee-simple to the respective purchaser or purchasers, for such price or prices as they or a majority can agree upon, relation being had to the respective properties of the several lots.

III. And be it enacted, that the respective purchasers of said lots, shall pay and satisfy the said commissioners for whatever sum or sums they may severally incur by purchasing lots from the said commissioners; and in case of neglect or refusal of any purchaser to pay the sum or sums that may be incurred as aforesaid, that then and in that case the commissioners, or a majority of them, may commence a suit or suits in their own names, and therein recover judgment with costs of the suit; and the said commissioners as soon as they shall receive the money by sales as aforesaid, shall pay to Fergus Sloan the sum of twelve (12) shillings per acre, for the said fifty (50) acres, in full satisfaction for the said land, and the residue, if any, shall be applied in defraying the expense in laying off said town.

IV. And be it enacted, that in the case of the death, refusal to act, or removal out of the county, of any of the commissioners, the survivor or survivors of them are hereby empowered from time to time, by instrument of writing under their hands, to appoint some other person, being a freeholder in said county of Iredell, in the place of him so dying, refusing to act, or removing as aforesaid; which commissioner or trustee shall have the same power and authorities as if he had been appointed by this act.

And whereas a clause was annexed to the above recited act for the division of Rowan County, authorizing the Justices of the Peace for said county of Rowan, who in the aforesaid division might fall within Iredell county, to exercise all the powers and authorities to which they were severally and otherwise entitled as Justices for Rowan: And whereas said clause by accident or other casualty never appeared to said act: and whereas the Justices of Rowan county falling into Iredell county as aforesaid, proceeded to exercise the powers and authorities supposed to be contained in the clause as aforementioned, from the fourth Monday in December, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, until the fourth Monday in June, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, destitute of the authority supposed to be contained in the clause aforesaid, whereby trouble and inconveniency may arise to those who have had business done with or by the aforesaid Justices during that period: for remedy whereof.

V. Be it enacted, that all the proceedings of the aforesaid Justices, during the above period including two (2) courts in said county of Iredell, shall be deemed to have the same force and validity as if the aforesaid Justices had been invested with all the necessary powers and authorities as Justices of the Peace, any law or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

An Act for the Regulation of the Town of Statesville, in the County of Iredell.

(Private Laws of 1801, Chapter 60.)

[I.] Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That on the first Thursday of March next, and on the same day in every third year thereafter, the inhabitants of Statesville, and all lotholders therein, shall meet at the courthouse of said county, and there elect by ballot three (3) persons, who shall be inhabitants of said town; which election shall be conducted by two (2) persons to be appointed by the Court of said county for that purpose; and the electors as above described, who are entitled to vote for Members of the General Assembly, shall be entitled to vote in said election: Which persons, when elected, shall be denominated the Commissioners of the town of Statesville, and shall have perpetual succession.

II. And be it further enacted, That the Commissioners of the town of Statesville, when so elected, they or a majority of them, or their successors in office, shall have full power and authority to make all rules, regulations and bylaws for their own regulation, and for opening, extending and cleaning the streets, and shall have power to remove all obstructive encroachments and nuisances whatsoever from the streets of said town, at the expense of the person or persons making such obstructions, encroachments and nuisances whatsoever.

III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the said Commissioners, or a majority of them, or their successors in office, shall have power to lay a tax on all polls in said town, not exceeding two (2) shillings on each poll, and a tax not exceeding two (2) shillings on every hundred (100) pounds value of town property; which taxes shall be collected and accounted for, and appropriated for the above purposes, as they or a majority of them shall direct.

IV. And be further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That said Commissioners shall have power to appoint a Treasurer, whose duty it shall be to collect and account for all monies, agreeably to the rules of said Commissioners, for the improvement of the streets of said town; and said Commissioners, or a majority of them, or their successors in office, shall have power to make all necessary bylaws for the good government and improvement thereof: Provided said laws be not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of this State and of the United States.

An Act to Incorporate the Town of Statesville.

Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That the corporate limits of the town of Statesville, in the county of Iredell, shall be included within the following boundaries, to wit; Beginning at a black oak sapling (now a rock) near the north east corner of Fourth Creek Grave Yard, running south one and a half (1½) degrees, east, one hundred and ten (110) poles to a stake (now a rock); then south eighty-nine and a half (89½) degrees, east, one hundred and two (102) poles to a post oak, Robert Work's corner; then north one and a half (1½) degrees, east, one hundred and ten (110) poles to a stake on the Salisbury road (now a rock); then south eighty-nine and a half (89½) degrees west, one hundred and two and a half (102½) poles to the beginning.

Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, That Arthur M. Walker be, and is hereby appointed town magistrate and commissioner for the town of Statesville, in the county of Iredell; and that James F. Harbie, Joseph W. Stockton, Theophilus Falls and L. Q. Sharpe, be, and they are hereby appointed commissioners, for the town of Statesville, in county aforesaid and that said above-named town magistrates and commissioners shall each of them take an oath of office, on or before the last day of February next, and shall hold their appointment for one (1) year therefrom, and until others shall be elected, under the provisions of this act.

Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, That the said town magistrate and commissioners, after they shall have taken an oath faithfully to perform their duty, shall be deemed and held a body politic and corporate, by the name and style of "the commissioners of Statesville," and as such may sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, have and use a common seal, and change the same at pleasure, and have perpetual succession; and the said commissioners, town magistrate acting as one, shall have full power and authority to adopt all such rules, regulations and bylaws, as they, or a majority of them, may deem necessary for the good order and government of said town, for the improvement of the streets, and preservation of health in said town, and all other regulations the comfort and convenience of the citizens may require, provided the same shall not be inconsistent with the constitution of this State or of the United States; and said commissioners shall have power to appoint a town clerk, who shall hold his appointment for one (1) year only, whose duty it shall be to record all the proceedings of the commissioners, in a well-bound book, kept by him for that purpose: He shall also act as treasurer; and shall give bond and security, in the sum of five hundred dollars ($500.00), made payable to the State of North Carolina, and conditioned for the safekeeping of all monies that may come into his hands as treasurer, and for paying out the same as ordered by the commissioners, and for the faithful performance of his duty as clerk. They shall also have power to make sale of any vacant lot or lots, if any there be, in the corporate limits of said town, and convey title for the same; to appoint a town constable, whose duty it shall be to collect all the taxes levied, and fines imposed by said commissioners, and forfeitures incurred by the violation of any bylaw passed by said commissioners, and he shall give bond and security, in one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), made payable to the State of North Carolina, and conditioned for the collection of all such claims, as may be placed in his hands by the commissioners, or their order, and the punctual paying over of the same to the treasurer, above named, and faithful performance of his duty as town constable; and said constable so appointed, shall hold said appointment for one (1) year only, and shall have the same powers and privileges as other constables, and shall have, use and exercise all lawful ways and means, which are usually had, used and exercised by the several sheriffs of this State, and be subject to the same liabilities that they are in the collection of public revenue; and the above named bonds, when executed as above directed, shall be filed in the county court clerk's office for safekeeping; and for a breach of the condition of either the clerk's or constable's bond, the commissioners shall have the same remedies as are usually had on the bonds of clerks and constables.

Sec. 4. Be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for the citizens of said town, who live within the corporate limits of the same, to meet at the court house and elect a town magistrate and four (4) commissioners, on the last Monday in February, eighteen hundred and forty eight, and every two (2) years thereafter, who shall hold their offices for two (2) years therefrom; and it shall be the duty of the sheriff of said county to give ten (10) days' notice, at the court house door, previous to said elections, and to hold the same, under the same rules, regulations and restrictions, that elections are now held for members of the General Assembly, and shall determine who is elected; and he shall immediately furnish the town clerk with a certificate of who are elected town magistrate and commissioners; which said certificate said clerk shall enter into the book in which he records the proceedings of the commissioners of Statesville; and such so made, by said town clerk, shall be held and deemed conclusive evidence of the election of such persons to the offices therein specified.

Sec. 5. Be it further enacted, That any free white male citizen within the corporate limits of said town, of the age of twenty-one (21) years, who has lived in the limits of said town for three (3) months immediately preceding the day of election and paid a public tax in the county, shall be entitled to vote in said election.

Sec. 6. Be it further enacted, That said town magistrate and commissioners, or a majority of them, should they deem it necessary, are hereby authorized and empowered annually, on or before the first Monday in May in every year, to lay a tax not exceeding one dollar ($1.00), on all taxable polls residing within the corporate limits of said town, and tax not exceeding twenty-five cents ($0.25) on every hundred dollars ($100.00) worth of property, within the corporate limits of said town, which tax, when collected, to be applied to the improvement of the streets of the town, and such other purposes, as the town magistrate and commissioners, or a majority of them, may think proper.

Sec. 7. Be it further enacted, That the town magistrate, who shall also be a justice of the peace of said county, shall preside in all meetings of the commissioners, and shall have power to call them together, whenever he may deem it necessary: he shall have power to issue warrants, in the name of the commissioners of Statesville, against all persons who may violate the laws of the corporation, and try and determine the same: it shall also be his duty to have a general supervision over the corporation, to superintend all improvements and works ordered by the commissioners, and see that the laws are observed, and good order preserved.

Sec. 8. Be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of every person residing or owning property within the corporate limits of said town, to deliver, on oath, to the town magistrate, on or before the first Monday in April in every year, a list of the taxable polls that may be members of his or her family, at that time; also a statement of all the town property which he or she may own, and the value of the same; and any person failing to give in, as above required, either or both of said statements, shall incur a forfeiture of twenty-five dollars ($25.00), recoverable in the name of the commissioners of "Statesville," by warrant before any justice of the peace in the county, to be applied, as the commissioners may think best, for the improvement of the streets.

Sec. 9. Be it further enacted, That if the town magistrate, or any of the commissioners herein appointed, or who may hereafter be elected under the provisions of this act, shall fail or refuse to act as commissioner of said town, or to qualify within two (2) months after the appointment or election, such delinquent or delinquents shall incur a forfeiture of fifty dollars ($50.00) for every such failure, or neglect, recoverable by warrant, before any justice of the peace, in the name of the State, to the use of the commissioners of Statesville, to be applied by them to the improvement of the streets.

Sec. 10. Be it further enacted, That if the sheriff should fail or neglect to perform his duty in holding the election for commissioners of Statesville, at any time as required by the provisions of this act, for every such failure, he shall incur a forfeiture of fifty dollar ($50.00), recoverable in like manner and to be appropriated in the same way as the forfeiture of commissioners in the preceding section.

Sec. 11. Be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the town clerk to advertise ten (10) days all the bylaws passed by the commissioners of Statesville, at the court house door, and no bylaw, rule or ordinance shall take effect until after such advertisement.

Sec. 12. Be it further enacted, That the town clerk and town constable, shall receive such fees for their services as said commissioners may think proper to allow, and no more; and anyone appointed town clerk or town constable, by the commissioners of Statesville, under the provisions of this act, and shall fail, neglect or refuse to act, shall thereby incur a forfeiture of fifty dollars ($50.00), recoverable by warrant, before any justice of the peace, in the name of the commissioners of Statesville, and applied to the improvement of streets.

Sec. 13. Be it further enacted, That if said town magistrate and commissioners shall permit the streets or roads within the corporate limits of said town to get out of order, and remain so as to become a nuisance, or shall permit any other nuisance to exist in said limits, which they had the power to remove, they shall be liable to indictment, and on conviction, shall be fined at the discretion of the court.

Sec. 14. Be it further enacted, That all acts heretofore passed, for the better regulation of the town of Statesville, coming within the meaning and purview of this act, be, and the same [is] hereby repealed.

Sec. 15. Be it further enacted, that this act shall be in force from and after its ratification.

(Ratified 9th of January, 1847)